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Sys Admin and The Perl
Journal CD-ROM version 12.0
Version 12.0 delivers every issue of Sys Admin from 1992 through 2006 and every
issue of The Perl Journal from 1996-2002 in one convenient CD-ROM!
Order now! |
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PMAN — Partition Manager for Oracle Range Partitions
Michael Wang, Julie Wang
The authors describe the benefits of Oracle table partitioning.
Database Protection Using Oracle Data Guard
Aaron Diehl
Diehl describes implementation and monitoring strategies of Oracle’s Data Guard services that can help make database recovery less painful.
Oracle RAC Primer
Chris Page
Page examines how a RAC database environment differs from a conventional Oracle database.
Oracle RAC Isn’t Just for Databases
Chris Page
Page examines Oracle’s clusterware technology and provides a simple configuration for demonstration purposes.
Implementing Highly Available Oracle Databases with Red Hat Cluster Suite
Sergey Nemirovsky
Nemirovsky explains the capabilities and limitations of Red Hat Cluster Suite in reducing downtime and improving availability of Oracle databases.
Building a Bulletproof Penguin: DB2 and Linux Failover
Joe La Chapell, JT Vogt
Implementing a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that will impact every division of a company is an intriguing proposition. A lot is expected of such a system, and when we were tasked with this undertaking at our company, we did not want to neglect the foundation of it -- the database. As we researched this project, it became evident that we could satisfy all the necessary requirements with a combination of products: IBM DB2, Red Hat Linux, as well as Heartbeat, Mon, and ipfail. In this article, I will describe how we built a "bulletproof penguin" one piece at a time.
Restoring Your Confidence in Oracle Backups
John Ouellette
Wouldn't it be great to be able to rely on your backups and have full confidence that they will work properly during a disaster or a routine restore operation? Unfortunately, making assumptions about your restores can lead to delays in projects, wasted time, and ultimately data loss. While it may be fairly easy to configure backups and assume the restore process will work as long as the backups have run successfully, the reality is that each process is different and involves its own set of challenges.
MySQL 5.0 Cluster: Architecture, Implementation, and Management
Norm Collins
Today's networks and applications are concentrating more on high availability and redundancy. Corporations are selling services to customers with a "guarantee", or "service-level agreement" (SLA), that provides an overall percentage of uptime along with detailed instructions on the rebate structure if certain conditions are not met. One of the key components in the delivery of information to customers is the availability of data from a robust and effective database management system (DBMS).
Getting to Know Your Network -- Part II
Luis E. Munoz
In the first article of this series, I showed how to build a script, aconfig, which allowed us to quickly execute commands on network devices. It also allowed us to use Perl to generate commands on the fly and process the result of those commands. To tell aconfig what to do, I wrote some small snippets of configuration commands, called ascripts. Those ascripts are used to gather version and configuration information from the network devices. In this article, I'll take the process one step further and build all this into a neat network inventory. (The complete listings for this article are available from the Sys Admin Web site at: http://www.sysadminmag.com.)
Veritas Volume Manager Recovery Features
Ryan Matteson
Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) has become the standard Logical Volume Manager (LVM) in many enterprises for its robust feature set, its ability to run on multiple operating systems (e.g., HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, Windows), and the numerous scalability, availability, and recoverability features that come with the base product. The recoverability features help to ensure that data is protected when hardware platforms fail and to ease the process required to restore systems to an operational state.
Generate Lightweight Web Database Applications Automatically with Formgen
Robert J. Bond 3rd
As a systems administrator, I often have a need for a simple database application accessible through a Web interface. A utility called FormGen allows you to automatically generate such applications quickly and easily. You may need to create a database from scratch, or you may only need a Web interface into an existing database. FormGen handles either scenario with ease.
Cameo Appearance as DBA -- Part II
Roger Feldman
Part I of "Cameo Appearance as DBA" concentrated on background information that needs to be considered to create test databases for Sybase and Oracle. I covered issues that affect how you will analyze your current configurations and how you will approach your installations. I then made the initial connections to the database and considered how you can start and stop the database. In Part II, I will dive into exploration of the database using the command-line utilities.
Oversubscribing an Oracle Server Using Solaris FSS
Eric Forgette
One of the biggest challenges in consolidating database instances onto a single, multiprocessor system is the limited control over the priority of processes running in the time share scheduling class. In this class, each runnable thread is individually scheduled based on its priority, time spent on CPU, and time spent waiting for a CPU. Thus, a database instance with many threads can get more work done than an instance with only a few threads.
Effective Database Key Generation Techniques
Alexander Daminoff
Unique entity identity is one of the fundamental principles of data modeling. When devising a database of just about any type, the ability to uniquely identify every record is an essential attribute of successful design. In fact, relational database theory mandates that every relation have a primary key -- an attribute or collection of attributes that identifies it uniquely and unambiguously [1]. Besides serving as a unique ID for a given entity, a primary key is also used to establish and maintain inter-entity relationships. Thus, a human resources database is likely to relate employees to their respective departments by tagging every employee record with a department key.
Using GraphViz for Database Schema Visualization
Mihalis Tsoukalos
This article will try to combine the power of Perl and GraphViz in order to partly visualize a DBMS. I will provide a quick introduction to GraphViz, and then present the use of GraphViz for illustrating Entity Relation (ER) diagrams. Finally, I will demonstrate a Perl script for visualizing all the tables of a user in an Oracle DBMS using GraphViz.
Creating Cross-Platform Solutions with Open Database Connectivity
D. Hageman
Systems administrators can often find themselves in a situation where they are forced to support a product lacking in adequate documentation, stability, and technical support. The stories vary, but the end result is generally the same. You can probably hear your boss right now, saying: "We can't get rid of this product, because it is essential to our business."
FreeTDS for Database Connectivity
Kevin M. Lyons
It has often been said that the world would be a nicer place for programmers and administrators if everyone used the same operating system, if only one database were needed, only one programming language... Let us pause for a moment while you stop laughing.
porDBle -- A Portable Web Database Solution
Kenneth Hess
As an independent consultant, I am often asked to provide samples of my work to prospective clients. More than 90 percent of my work is built for intranets and, therefore, is not viewable by the world at large. I am legally bound, in most cases, to keep it that way, and that creates a dilemma. Selling these services without examples is like trying to sell a car that people can't look at. I could register a domain name and put up some working samples of my work to demonstrate my design, database interaction, and advertise other services as well, and I have done so at http://www.webdbms.com. This approach works to some extent, but prospective clients often see this as marketing and not a "real-life" example of an application that is in use.
Creating Informix HPL Jobs in Scripts
Ed Schaefer, John Spurgeon
If you are administering Informix OnLine databases containing very large tables, the High Performance Loader (HPL) bundled with the engine can be a godsend. Loading or unloading a very large table using the HPL is usually much faster than executing the Informix load or unload commands from a utility such as isql or dbaccess. The HPL is also faster than a typical application program that uses embedded SQL.
A Unix Perspective on Oracle Archive Redo Log Files
Mark Bole
I am keenly interested in how organizations define and manage the respective roles of the Unix Systems Administrator (SA) and Oracle Database Administrator (DBA). Many reasonable people will maintain that it is unlikely to find one person who can perform both jobs well, while others have enjoyed great success in environments where there is shared responsibility for both the root password and the SYSTEM password. Auditing concerns, career paths, on-call schedules, and egos further cloud the issue, sometimes leading to the construction of brick walls where perhaps a picket fence or even a chalk line on the ground would be more appropriate.
Capacity Planning for Oracle Databases Using Legato NetWorker
John Ouellette
While planning for backups, I wanted to know how large our databases would be in a year. No one I asked could provide an answer, so I decided to figure it out for myself. In this article, I will explain my process.
BIND Management Using ProBIND
Mark Barrow
I was recently hired to sort out the management of a clients BIND DNS servers. They had deployed multiple BIND DNS servers running on Solaris to serve both internal and external DNS for themselves as well as primary and secondary DNS services for many of their customers. The current solution involved editing the zone files on each master server (Internal/External), then reloading the DNS into a test namespace to check for errors (using nslookup, etc.) before deploying to the production namespace and running a Perl script to reload all of the servers. Although extremely stable, it was necessary that skilled sys admins spend a lot of time managing the solution. They wanted a solution that that could be maintained by other office staff.
Insecure by Default
Lukasz Wojtow
It seems so easy -- download Apache, throw PHP together with some database, and you have a new server for dynamic Web pages. It's true; building Web servers has never been easier or cheaper. The price paid for ease of use and installation, however, is loose configuration -- designed not to create problems on startup but not to be the most secure. This article describes how configuring MySQL, PostgreSQL, PHP, and Apache with their default settings can lead to security breaks. Some of the issues covered can be applied only to shared hosting, where an attacker owns a virtual host and has unprivileged, local access to the system.
Special Tool of the Month: MySQL Administrator
Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier
This month, I'll introduce a tool for MySQL users. The tool is MySQL Administrator, and it's provided by MySQL AB.
I'm a command-line kind of guy most of the time. Sometimes, it's just easier to do something through a GUI, or at least to have the option to do so. MySQL Administrator is one of those handy GUI tools. It's also a big boon for users who may only be used to working with a SQL server through a GUI.
Using PHP to Back Up MySQL
Russell Dyer
The importance of backing up data can't be stressed enough, and this also applies to backing up MySQL databases. One of the keys to making regular backups is to automate the process. You could buy a backup program that will copy the data files from a filesystem to archive media. However, for more dependable backups, MySQL would have to be shut down before a backup program were run, which could make MySQL unavailable to users for quite a while. A better alternative is to write a PHP script that will use a utility like mysqldump.
PHP and XML
Russell Dyer
XML is very useful in standardizing data that's shared between diverse systems. Most databases and programs can export and import plain text and that's all XML is. So if you've been asked to interface data from your organization's system with the system of another organization, consider using XML for the exchange. It's an agreeable medium.
Taming the Distributed Database Problem: A Case Study Using MySQL
Giuseppe Maxia
There are situations where data belonging to a given context are nonetheless scattered among different servers, possibly in separate locations. In such situations, gathering data together is more difficult than dealing with a unified set of tables, where all of them were under the same engine. The challenge is purely technological. It is easy to create a virtual file system, making the database engine believe that all the files are in the same machine, even though they are just a link over the network, perhaps hundreds of miles apart. However, in such a case the performance would be so unfavorable that the whole purpose of having a DBMS would be mystified. Hence, the distributed database studies, which try to find clever ways of reducing the technological gaps and make normal operations look, if not ordinary business, at least affordable.
Schemaball: A New Spin on Database Visualization
Martin Krzywinski
Understanding relationships and patterns in complex database schemas is simplified when the data can be effectively visualized. Schema diagrams are particularly useful when numerous entities and relationships are involved. Conventions for drawing schemas, such as the entity-relationship diagram (ERD) and the general Universal Modeling Language (UML) framework, provide recipes to draw a wide range of entities and relationships (see references). Their visual vocabulary is highly controlled, to ensure consistency, and rich, to allow flexibility.
PHP and MySQL
Russell Dyer
One of the most popular programming language and database engine combinations for the Web is PHP with MySQL. This combination works well for many reasons: primarily the speed, the stability, and the simplicity of both applications. The two are used extensively on a variety of Web sites. As a systems administrator, you can use the pair for storing data on users, hardware, and system documentation, for example. In this article, I will explain the basics of how to connect to MySQL and how to query MySQL with PHP.
Introduction to Oracle Recovery Manager Backups
Sean Scott
Taking a physical backup of an Oracle database is no simple task. For years, DBAs depended on complex shell scripts that would extract lists of all the files that needed backup, build SQL and Unix commands to put tablespaces into backup mode and copy files, and monitor the process for exceptions. Backups for large databases could run for hours because the process simply made a copy of each database file, and there was no provision for incremental backups. Perhaps the deepest, darkest fear of any DBA was to perform a database recovery and realize that the entire plan was invalid due to the lack of one small, yet crucial, file.
Database Migrations the VxVM Way
Rainer Raab
The duties of a Unix systems administrator range from the simple and mundane, to the complex and mission-critical. We are often called upon to reset a password, remove an unwanted file, restore a backup, apply security patches, etc. Though not very challenging, these tasks are important and must be performed with vigor. Less frequently, we are enlisted to perform a challenging task, offering us a chance to learn something new and prove our worth. Such tasks include operating system upgrades, building Web server farms, allocating new disk arrays, and database migrations, to name a few. Database migrations, which are the most complex and mission critical, offer the most reward and the opportunity to add new skills to one's oeuvre.
Web Interfaces in MySQL with Perl
Russell Dyer
One of the most popular ways to interface to MySQL table is through the Web browser. While the basics of MySQL and HTML may be fairly straightforward, how to put them together with a scripting language like Perl can be confusing to developers at first. In previous articles in UnixReview.com, I have covered parts of this task, but not all of the aspects of retrieving and editing MySQL data, and not in great detail. In this four-part series, I will give detailed explanations and examples of how you can develop a Web interface to MySQL in Perl, using the Perl CGI and the Perl DBI modules.
MySQL for E-Commerce Web Sites
Werner Klauser
Today's e-commerce Web sites do not have dry HTML-coded Web pages. Their dynamic Web pages need to react to changing situations. Whether this situation involves constantly changing inventory, orders being processed, up-to-date sport scores, or live share prices, the Web pages must reflect these changes. You want to constantly re-code the HTML-coded Web pages, but wouldn't it be cool if the Web pages somehow adapted themselves to a constantly changing database? Why is MySQL often used on e-commerce Web sites? For that matter, what is MySQL, and what can you do with it? In this article, I will provide an overview of MySQL and its uses.
NetBackup Performance Reports with MySQL/Perl
Jerry Uanino
Backups are always a problem. Often, even in large companies where you would expect such an important task to be a high priority, backups are given to a new guy, an intern, or anyone willing to pay attention. Many excellent systems administrators began their careers changing tapes and monitoring or restarting failed backups.
Managing Network IP Assignment with a Database and Web Interface
Jim McBride
The Garvan Institute of Medical Research is a growing organization with about 350 researchers and support staff, and roughly the same number of computers throughout the building. We recently ran out of IP addresses within the two subnets we operated, so we launched a project to remodel the IP address space and reconfigure each computer with a new IP address. This required a visit to each computer in the organization -- an arduous task that we prefer to avoid.
Oracle Database Backups via UFS Snapshots and Enterprise Backup Products
Rick Moakley
In the fall of 2002, I was assigned the task of putting together a Solaris 9 system for a new machine, including system and database backups. Typically, we would install an ATL and backup product for this task, but we wanted to move away from that model to something more enterprise-centric. We use IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager for our enterprise backup product, so we looked into their Data Protection for Oracle add-on. In the meantime, I put together an interim solution, as described in this article, which worked so well that we kept it.
Review of sqlDESKTOP
Marcel Gagné
I've always loved the expression, "a clean desk is a sign of a sick mind". It's usually written on a little sign or on a coffee mug, both of which are sitting on somebody's messy desk. The reason I like this statement is, of course, because my desk tends to be (oh, how shall I put it) a little unfastidious. For many people out there (notice that I'm now cleverly directing the discussion away from myself), the lack of desktop organization goes beyond the physical desktop and into their computer systems.
Enterprise Database Backup Check
Ed Schaefer
If you administer a phalanx of enterprise, worldwide, distributed databases, how can you verify remote server sites are performing scheduled database backups or archives? How about executing a shell script on a Unix client that accesses each remote database server, checks how long it's been since the last backup completed, and emails a warning to the proper administrators? This is child's play if the backup start and stop times are stored in the database. Also, it's simple enough if the backup statistics are generated by a Unix executable -- just execute a remote shell, remsh, and return the necessary data.
Dixons Group Right-Sizing their Servers
With £4 billion per annum (over $6 billion USD) in revenue, Dixons Group has become UK's leading High Street retailer of consumer electronics, selling the largest range of TV, video, audio, personal computer, photographic and communications technology.
Get Your FREE Red Carpet Enterprise Evaluator's Guide Today!
Red Carpet Enterprise, part of the Ximian family of Red Carpet services, is a powerful, server-based software application that provides IT managers, network engineers and system administrators with a secure, customizable, behind-the firewall solution that automates the central management of software packages on workstations and servers.
RDB -- A UNIX Command-Line Database
Mark Pruett
Sometimes, even a small database is too big. Databases such as mySQL and PostgreSQL, while lightweight and easy to install by commercial standards, may still be more than you need for some straightforward data analysis problems. Some of these databases may also require root access to install, which may not be practical in some environments.
Developing a MySQL Quota Daemon
Daniel Solin
One of the drawbacks of MySQL is the lack of a real quota system. This article will cover how our ISP was able to solve this problem and keep track of our customers' databases. With this completely automated solution, many hours of administration work was avoided.
Web-Enabled Filesystem-Based Databases
Leo Liberti
Constructing a Web-enabled database is advantageous for many reasons. Virtually all techniques for implementing product catalogs, shopping carts, and even portal sites rely on a database containing the information and some form of dynamic Web page construction, be it ASP, PHP, or CGIs. The downside to having a Web-enabled database is that it is difficult to set up and administer.
Integrating Nessus with MySQL
Lorell Hathcock , Tony Howlett
Nessus is an open source, network-based vulnerability scanner available for the Linux platform. It is based on a client-server architecture with the server running on UNIX and Linux, with UNIX, Linux, and Windows clients available. If you are unfamiliar with vulnerability scanners, they are software packages that interrogate a machine over the network and determine whether it is vulnerable to any number of security holes. Since the number of exploits grows daily, and keeping up with the patches is a never-ending task, a vulnerability scanner can be a quick way to determine whether there are any vulnerabilities in your systems.
Using NetWorker and UFS Snapshots to Back Up Oracle Databases
Christopher T. Beers
In early 2001, I was asked to find a solution that would allow us to back up an OracleTM 8.0.5 database after the machine was upgraded to SolarisTM 8. At that time, the machine was running Solaris 2.6, and a turnkey application that was built on top of the outdated release of Oracle. We backed up the system using BMC SQL-BackTrack to a Legato NetWorker server. This setup provided our customers with point-in-time recoveries using Oracle's archive logging, warm online backups during the week, and cold offline backups weekly on Sunday mornings. Our customers, of course, expected similar service levels with the new solution -- specifically, downtime in which to cold back up the database was at a premium.
An SQL Archive for Email and MIME Attachments
Robert J. Bond 3rd
Email has exploded in volume, importance, and complexity. For business or legal reasons, many organizations are archiving email and attached files. The traditional method of archiving and compressing multiple flat-text files gets the job done, but retrieval is time-consuming, very limited, and generally must be performed by the administrator.
mytop -- A top-like Clone for MySQL
Werner Klauser
mytop is a console-based (non-GUI) tool that allows you to monitor MySQL 3.22.x, 3.23.x, and 4.x servers by viewing active threads, queries, and overall server performance numbers. mytop was inspired by the popular system monitoring tool "top". It runs on most UNIX systems (including Mac OS X) that have Perl and the DBI and DBD::mysql modules installed.
Small Databases: From Desktop to Web Server
N. Dean Pentcheff
Some databases are large and dynamic, demanding an integrated system where the Web front-end and the database back-end share a common data store. However, many small databases require less frequent updates and require no updates from the Web at all (examples include phone lists and reference information). Typically, those small databases have been cobbled together on desktop systems using a variety of software, such as Access, Filemaker, and Excel. Because those maintaining the database often lack experience in information technology, it is desirable to simplify these updates as much as possible.
PHP and MSSQL
Christian Wenz
When talking about creating server-side scripts using PHP, the MySQL database often comes into play. The reason for that is historical, as the first database system PHP ever supported was MySQL. However, there are some known limitations on MySQL. Sub-SELECT queries are missing, for example, and MySQL also lacks transaction support, at least as of version 3.x. With the forthcoming version 4 (alpha version already available), some of these limitations are supposed to be fixed. A lot of other excellent database systems exist out there, many of which are supported by PHP -- PostgreSQL, for example, is currently popular.
Log Management Using Apache::DBILogger
Chip Castle
Many log-analyzer applications are available on the Web, but most are limited to specific predefined types of functionality. Many of these applications gather file transfer specifics from Apache's flat-file access log, which can confine the end user to a narrow scope of data-mining activities. I needed a much more flexible solution, which would allow me to add extra functionality in a scalable, customizable fashion. Thus, I installed the Apache::DBILogger module, which logs all incoming http requests on your server to a MySQL database.
db_update -- Controlling UNIX Enterprise Database Releases
Ed Schaefer
Application software changes generally require database schema updates. Questions about a software release often arise. Is the database schema in sync with the application object code? Was a previously required software version installed? Were there any errors during the update? If so, have these errors endangered the software release and should the update be reversed? Answering these questions requires a concise, consistent method for updating, as well as reversing changes.
Usogres -- The PostgreSQL Replication Tool
Tim Epkes
Data redundancy is important in any network requiring zero downtime. Load balancing software works great, however, data replication sometimes becomes a challenge. How do we get the data currently being entered, replicated to a standby database in case of a primary database failure? This can be a very big challenge. You could shut down the database every night and rsync the data, which would work, but this method doesn't provide a very good solution for keeping the data up to date. A failure during mid-day transactions could result in loss of the data entered for that morning.
Sybaccess: A Menu-Driven Interface to Sybase
Ed Schaefer
Sybase provides an interactive SQL (ISQL) utility for their UNIX database management system for the execution of SQL data management statements. Because ISQL is basically a command-line interpreter, the user help for ISQL is quite austere. To hide the ISQL implementation from software support people, I have developed a shell script, called Sybaccess, that provides a familiar menu interface to ISQL.
Sybase Database Administration: Part 3
William Genosa
In the Nov./Dec. issue, part two of this series discussed database tables and supplied two programs that generate the sql required to re-create all the user tables for a given Sybase database. In this issue I focus on indexes and provide two more tools which together generate the sql required to re-create all the indexes that exist within a user database.
Sybase Database Administration: Part 2
William Genosa
Last issue (Sept/Oct '94) I gave a brief overview of Sybase and a detailed description of how Sybase catalogs the relationships between logical and physical disk devices. I discussed the disk init command and introduced the create.diskinit program that reverse-engineers the logical-to-physical relationships of Sybase disk devices. This month I will discuss database tables and provide two useful tools that generate the SQL required to recreate a single table, or all the tables in a Sybase database.
Sybase Database Administration
William Genosa
System administrators are sometimes asked to wear different hats. Because UNIX systems are often used as database servers, some system administrators are also database administrators.
Using Oracle with Apache and PHP on Linux
William W. David
David outlines the steps needed to access Oracle databases from PHP running under Apache.
Volume Management and File Systems Usage and Implementation
Henry Newman
Current file systems trace their roots from the UFS file system, which was proposed in 1965. By the early 1970s, the UNIX file system was up and running. Since then, not much has changed in file systems and there have only been incremental hardware changes. I think the file system and volume manager are the most critical components in achieving I/O performance from both the OS and underlying hardware. Even the best file system and volume manager can be configured so that the performance is poor. Therefore, my next couple of columns will cover file system and volume management, in addition to file system configuration and tuning.
Storage Consolidation — Part 3 — Implementation Details
Peter Baer Galvin
Last month, Galvin's column discussed product selection. Storage arrays, SAN switches, tape drives and libraries, and replication all have options to consider and tradeoffs to weigh. This month, the rubber meets the road as Galvin's column addresses implementation. (reprinted with permission from Sys Admin)
Build a Scalable Search Engine with LISA
Robert J. Bond 3rd
Off-the-shelf Web search software can be a snap to install and configure, but even the best solutions may have limitations, whether technical or license-related. If you have special search needs, you may want to build your own search engine, but what about scalability? Many homegrown solutions (and some commercial ones) don’t scale well enough to handle tens or even hundreds of thousands of documents. However, building a scalable solution is straightforward if you start with a good blueprint.
Performance Tuning: A Case Study
Mark E. Dawson, Jr.
I’ve encountered many types of interview questions from employers in the IT field. Questions have ranged from troubleshooting, architecture, and performance tuning to operating systems, database technologies, and kernel internals. Although most of the questions were par for the course, one question really stuck with me and led me to write this article.
Tracking Machines with GetHost
John Shearer
Shearer describes an application called GetHost, which can quickly search several sources of information in order to track machines on the network.
Minimal Backups
Shawn Bayern
Bayern describes his simple, one-script backup program. The script offers incremental and full backups using a few lines of shell script.
AIX Cloning
Mark E. Dawson, Jr.
In this article, Dawson provides an example of cloning the image of one machine architecture onto another machine of a different architecture and explains how and why it works under AIX.
Oracle Backup for UNIX Administrators
Bill Mansfield
Mansfield's article shows how to find out whether you're getting good backups for your database, and if not, how to get them in the future.
Solaris Patch Levels
Knox shares a couple of scripts for automating the patching process.
Halted Firewalls
Mike Murray
Murray shows how to configure a Linux box so the firewall will continue to filter packets after the machine has been shut down.
The Golden Rules of Sun Systems Administration
This month, Peter provides a hard-earned set of rules that can help guide systems administrators toward good systems practices. True-life examples show why these rules are so important.
Web Publishing with Perl Objects
Reinhard Voglmaier
Voglmaier builds on a previously described process for getting Web content into production.
Free Snapshots?
Peter Baer Galvin
Over the past few months, I’ve been covering new and useful Solaris 8 features in the Solaris Companion. This month continues the trend by looking at the new fssnap command, which provides snapshot copies of the default UFS file system, much like commercial file systems provide. But is it a winner like UFS logging and IP multipathing? This month I test fssnap, I provide useful new reference services, and some feedback on a previous column.
Questions and Answers
Let Sys Admin solve your problems!
Submit your technical systems administration questions to our contributing editor, Amy Rich, President of Oceanwave Consulting Inc. Each month, Amy will select several challenging questions to answer in her column.
Simplifying Web Production
Books: A User's Report
Elizabeth Zinkann
In the quest for a reliable operating system, many companies continue to choose SolarisTM. Recent releases of Solaris books address varying degrees of user and administration experience and also specialize in individual concepts. Some of the latest additions to the existing Solaris repertoire include: Solaris Administration: A Beginner's Guide by Paul Watters (Osborne McGraw-Hill); Solaris System Management by John Philcox (New Riders); Solaris Internals: Core Kernel Architecture by Jim Mauro and Richard McDougall (Sun Microsystems Press, A Prentice Hall Title); and Sun Cluster Environment, Sun Cluster 2.2 by Enrique Vargas, Joseph Bianco, and David Deeths (Sun Blueprints, Sun Microsystems Press, A Prentice Hall Title).
E-Class Tools
Keith Clay
Clay describes the implementation and use of the Totalnet Access Server (TAS) from Syntax, Inc.
Oracle Database Backup
Trying to back up today's databases is like trying to catch a charging rhino with a butterfly net. Real world databases have become screaming behemoths that are very difficult to capture (back up), and standard UNIX utilities are like butterfly nets. If you try to use these utilities for the job, not only will you not capture the data -- you'll break your arm! This article is my attempt to build a better rhino trap. It uses many advanced shell scripting features, so you may find it useful even if you do not have Oracle.
Using PHP and MySQL as a Weblog
In this article, I will show how the embedded server-side scripting language PHP and the fast MySQL database can work as a Weblog.
Implementing Web/RCS under Oracle OWS for UNIX
Alan C. Davis
This article describes the changes required to port it to Oracle Corporations's OWS Web server, a few enhancements that have been made, and some tricks that enhance the usefulness of Web/RCS for Oracle Applications and Forms development. The configuration detailed here assumes that OWS is being used in an Oracle Applications 11.0 environment.
Optimizing Solaris for Oracle 8.x
Systems administrators are often called upon to configure or "optimize" an operating system for a given application. Although often unfamiliar with the application itself, administrators are challenged to ensure the optimal performance of the product that is implemented on the platform constituting the area of their expertise
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