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NewsVac: News from around the Web
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Netgear's open wireless-G router for open source hackers
2 weeks, 5 days ago
"NETGEAR has announced a wireless router specifically targeted at the Linux community. The WGR614L is based on a MIPS CPU with 16M of RAM an 4M of flash, along with 802.11g and 10/100 ethernet connectivity. It currently runs Tomato and DD-WRT firmware and will soon add support for OpenWRT." -
From Live Mesh to the Open Mesh
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Marc Canter has written a series of blog posts outlining the issues, constructs, technologies, and standards required to build out an"open mesh." -
Cisco:networking is hot again
2 months, 2 weeks ago
NAC, Trustsec, PCI, Linux and more are all on the table as Cisco VP outlines the network giant's strategy moving forward. -
Why we should care about the spectrum debate
4 months, 1 week ago
The debate of who should manage the wireless spectrum and whether it should be open is key to the future of mobile and personal computing, experts say. -
Muni Wi-Fi's second chance
4 months, 1 week ago
Wi-Fi networks can work with a little tweaking, a new study finds. -
IPv6 and IPv4 - big trouble coming, and soon
4 months, 3 weeks ago
You'll know that most of the Internet runs on IP version 4, the first cut of the Internet Protocol to see widespread use. It was standardised in 1981; for the past twenty five years or so, it's underpinned the beyond-massive expansion of the Internet. -
AT&T to crush copyrighted network packets
6 months, 1 week ago
"AT&T says it's time to start filtering copyrighted content at the network level. During a panel discussion at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), The New York Times reports, the communications giant joined Microsoft and NBC Universal in arguing that internet service providers - like AT&T itself - should be sniffing your networks packets and blocking anything that copyright holders don't traveling over the wire." -
IPv6 Set for Root Adoption?
6 months, 2 weeks ago
IPv6 adoption has a key adoption deadline looming this year, but is still facing plenty of barriers to adoption. Key among them is this: IPv6 address information is not included in most of the root DNS servers that power the Internet. This makes IPv6 to IPv6 connections a difficult proposition. -
Book review: Linux Networking Cookbook
7 months ago
"Linux networking cookbook is a book for both a seasoned and new Linux network administrator. It includes valuable time saving recipes, tools and related resources. The book is written in clear and concise style with tons of examples and working code .... " -
Open source NAC, but only with commercial support
7 months ago
"If you work for a university where you have a large pool of talented, but cheap, labor (interns), then an open source project might make sense because you have people who can manage and maintain the system..." -
Squeeze maximum usage out of your network resources
9 months, 3 weeks ago
If you have UNIX-based programming experience, then you've probably worried at some point about enhancing your network throughput. In this article, learn some useful techniques to squeeze the most out of your bandwidth, and get a big performance boost with some of the methods described here. -
Un-plugged rant: GNU/Linux and wireless
10 months ago
"Sometimes I just gotta wonder about GNU/Linux and wi-fi...Maybe you can help .... " -
Linux-based SLUG spawns highly hackable NAS
10 months, 2 weeks ago
"Cisco's consumer products division is shipping a successor to the Linux-based NSLU2 (aka 'SLUG') consumer NAS (network-attached storage) appliance, one of the most-hacked devices ever..." -
Chrooted SSH/SFTP tutorial for Debian Etch
10 months, 2 weeks ago
"This tutorial describes two ways how to give users chrooted SSH access..." -
Install and configure Network Information Service +
10 months, 3 weeks ago
"NIS+ is a network-wide naming and administration service that works on a client-server model. The server maintains all the details of the users and clients in a central database. In this article, get step-by-step instructions on how to install, configure, and administer NIS+ .... " - More News
Linux.com : Networking
Avoid latency while editing remote files using bcvi
The ability to run both console and graphical programs securely on a remote system using SSH brings you a great deal of freedom. When the communications link to that remote system has high latency, however, running interactive programs such as a text editor on the remote machine can become a real test of your patience. The bcvi project lets you edit files on a remote system using gvim (or another editor) on your local desktop machine to avoid the latency. Even without latency issues, bcvi is a handy tool when you want to use gvim to edit a file on a server that does not have gvim or the X libraries installed.
Monitoring network performance with GNetWatch
GNetWatch is a network monitoring and performance testing tool that lets you can see the status of hosts on your network, send ping requests of varying size and quality of service to hosts, and investigate SNMP information. GNetWatch includes support for using Wireshark and nmap to snoop packets and investigate hosts on the network.
Patches coming today for DNS vulnerability
Whether you're running Linux, Windows, Cisco, Sun, or other DNS servers, you are at risk from a newly discovered vulnerability. So says Dan Kaminsky, head of penetration testing research at IO Active, who accidently discovered the DNS "design flaw" earlier this year.
An introduction to the Kismet packet sniffer
Kismet is a wireless "detector, sniffer, and intrusion detection system," and one of the growing list of essential open source tools for computer network security professionals. Kismet runs on any POSIX-compliant platform, including Windows, Mac OS X, and BSD, but Linux is the preferred platform because it has more unencumbered RFMON-capable drivers than any of the others.
Investigating strange dialup activity with Wireshark
A controlled dial-on-demand router is a convenient tool. An uncontrolled dial-on-demand router is not. The Wireshark network protocol analyzer helped me track down the cause of some strange and unwanted dialup connections.
Monitoring network performance with speedometer
Speedometer shows a graph of your current and past network speed in your console, letting you see your network connection's up and downstream speed and history at a glance. You can also use speedometer directly on a file to monitor the download performance and history of a specific download instead of all network traffic. When displaying the total network traffic, speedometer is sort of like gkrellm, in that you can see the current and past network performance on a graph, but you can easily run it over an SSH connection without having to set up gkrellmd.
Benchmarking NFSv3 vs. NFSv4 file operation performance
NFS version 4, published in April 2003, introduced stateful client-server interaction and "file delegation," which allows a client to gain temporary exclusive access to a file on a server. NFSv4 brings security improvements such as RPCSEC_GSS, the ability to send multiple operations to the server at once, new file attributes, replication, client side caching, and improved file locking. Although there are a number of improvements in NFSv4 over previous versions, this article investigates just one of them -- performance.
Starting SSH connections simply with SSHMenu
SSHMenu adds a button to your GNOME panel that displays a configurable drop-down list of hosts that you have might like to connect to with SSH.
Tasty Tomato firmware for routers
Breathe new functionality into your router with Tomato third-party firmware for popular models of Broadcom-based routers, including popular models manufactured by Linksys.
Fwknop and single packet authorization
Protecting servers by placing them behind a firewall is a best-practice methodology for systems administrators, but it's not a panacea: those systems are still visible to network scanners such as nmap and nessus. While services like SMTP and HTTP may need to be accessible to the public, most enterprises also have private internal servers that require external access by traveling support staff. For those users, fwknop, an open source utility that provides single packet authorization, can help sysadmins hide their servers from network nasties.
Keeping your SSH connections alive with autossh
With autossh, you can monitor your SSH connections and restart them if they stop sending traffic or SSH exits abnormally. This makes autossh perfect for keeping secure port forwarding available.
What can you do with a second Ethernet port?
Purchase a new PC or motherboard soon, and the chances are good that it will come with two built-in network interfaces -- either two Ethernet jacks or one Ethernet and one Wi-Fi. Tossing in a second adapter is an inexpensive way for the manufacturer to add another bullet point to the product description -- but what exactly are you supposed to do with it? If you are running Linux, you have several alternatives.
Control and keep an eye on many VNC sessions at once
With vncthumbnailviewer you can see many VNC desktops at once and jump in to control any of them with a double click. vncthumbnailviewer acts like many VNC clients, so it can help you monitor many VNC servers.
Commercial KVM-based virtual desktop program arrives
KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine), Linux's own baked-in virtualization program, has been gaining popularity. Now, Qumranet, the company behind KVM, is releasing a commercial virtual desktop called Solid ICE based on KVM technology.
Rt2x00 project for wireless nearing success
If you use wireless networking in GNU/Linux with native drivers, then chances are that you benefit from work done by the Rt2x00 project. You may use the MadWifi Atheros drivers with OpenHal, or drivers for the Realtek RTL8180 chipset, but most likely you use one of the drivers developed by the Rt2x00 for Ralink chipsets. In the nearly four years since the project began, its work has moved from having a reputation for bugginess to the point where some of its drivers are now part of the latest Linux kernels. Recently, Linux.com talked to three of the lead developers on the project about where Rt2x00 has been and where it is going.
Creating a VPN with tinc
With tinc you can create a virtual private network (VPN) that lets you communicate between two machines over an insecure network such as the Internet with all of your traffic encrypted between the hosts on your virtual network.
How much can you improve network throughput with a high-end NIC?
What sort of impact can you expect from switching a machine from the Gigabit Ethernet NIC that come on its motherboard to a higher-end Intel desktop NIC? I benchmarked two common gigabit NICs found on motherboards against two Intel PCIe desktop gigabit NICs, targeting the specific purpose of accessing an NFS share over the network. The short version: throughput for sequential read/write operations didn't improve much, but latency was much better, allowing anything that needs a network round trip, like create, delete, and seek, to work much faster.
Hunting for wireless networking solutions
While most basic hardware support for GNU/Linux is improving constantly, wireless support remains dismal. Few manufacturers make an effort to support the operating system, or to publicize what support they have. Moreover, the components of wireless devices change so fast that one version of a device may offer support while a second version doesn't -- even though both versions share the same model number. And if, in addition to functionality, you also want a device with free drivers and no reliance on proprietary firmware, your choices are even more limited. Fortunately, no matter what your preferences, online resources exist to help you find the card that's right for you or get your existing wireless network adapter to work with Linux.
Ask Linux.com
Got a question about Linux or free and open source software? You've come to the right place. In the left column of every page, directly below the Distributions link, you'll find a link labeled "Get Linux help" that will take you to the Linux.com discussion forums -- your best bet for getting Linux-related troubleshooting and advice, whether the issue involves hardware, software, or neither. Here are some examples of threads from recent days -- some with answers, and some still looking for solutions.
Multifunction copiers in a Linux network
In many organizations, copiers get little respect. Often relegated to a break room or storage closet, they are underutilized and underappreciated, and get no attention from the IT department. Yet, multifunction copiers can play a critical role in reducing operating costs and become a hub for document processing.
