See also: Notes

How to Setup InfluxDB, Telegraf and Grafana on Docker: Part 1 - The New Stack

https://thenewstack.io/how-to-setup-influxdb-telegraf-and-grafana-on-docker-part-1/

Self hosting

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21235957

How to Use the dmesg Command on Linux

Dave McKay December 6, 2019, 8:00am EDT

The dmesg command lets you peer into the hidden world of the Linux startup processes. Review and monitor hardware device and driver messages from the kernel’s own ring buffer with “the fault finder’s friend.”

https://www.howtogeek.com/449335/how-to-use-the-dmesg-command-on-linux/

howtogeek.com: How to Copy and Paste Text at Linux’s Bash Shell

https://www.howtogeek.com/440558/how-to-copy-and-paste-text-at-linuxs-bash-shell/

TechRepublic: How to use the journalctl Linux command.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-use-the-journalctl-linux-command/

How to Install Fail2Ban to Protect SSH on CentOS/RHEL 8

https://www.tecmint.com/install-fail2ban-to-protect-ssh-on-centos-rhel/

Flockport: Time to Start All Over Again and Return to LXC Containers - The New Stack

https://thenewstack.io/flockport-time-to-start-all-over-again-and-return-to-lxc-containers/

How to get notified whenever someone logs in via SSH?

https://medium.com/@cmaster11/how-to-get-notified-whenever-someone-logs-in-via-ssh-947a8f8d4f37

How to Use Port Knocking on Linux (and Why You Shouldn’t).

https://www.howtogeek.com/442733/how-to-use-port-knocking-on-linux-and-why-you-shouldnt/

How to Watch TCP and UDP Ports in Real-time

https://www.tecmint.com/watch-tcp-and-udp-ports-in-linux/

ZDNet: Her iPhone died. It led to her being charged as a criminal.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/her-iphone-died-it-led-to-her-being-charged-as-a-criminal/

How to Write an fstab File on Linux

https://www.howtogeek.com/444814/how-to-write-an-fstab-file-on-linux/

Sysadmin fails: When service dependencies go wrong

Having problems with services failing to start because other services are taking too long? Here's one person's solution.

Posted October 30, 2019 by Amit Waghmare

High-performance computing (HPC) needs a parallel filesystem to mount storage over all nodes, and it needs to mount this storage using the InfiniBand (IB) network standard. Storage organization adds the mount command for the Lustre filesystem in /etc/rc.local to mount at boot time.

https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/service-dependencies

Computing pi with bc

Posted on 29 October 2019 by John D. Cook

I wanted to stress test the bc calculator a little and so I calculated π to 10,000 digits a couple different ways.

First I ran

''time bc -l <<< "scale=10000;4*a(1)"''

which calculates π as 4 arctan(1). This took 2 minutes and 38 seconds.

https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2019/10/29/computing-pi-with-bc/

DocBook.org

Hello and welcome!

This is the official home page for DocBook 5: The Definitive Guide. The definitive guide is the official documentation for DocBook. The latest edition covers !DocBook V5.0. It was published by O'Reilly Media and XML Press.

https://docbook.org/

How to Obscure Network Ports with a Port Knocking Sequence on Debian 10

Karl Wakim Oct 30, 2019

Port knocking is a method of dynamically opening network ports by “knocking” (i.e. connecting) on a predefined sequence of ports. This is especially useful for obscuring an open network port from port scanning since the port in question will be closed unless the port knocking sequence is executed. A long enough port knocking sequence is practically impossible to brute force: for example, to successfully guess (by brute force) a combination of 3 TCP ports, an attacker would have to try knocking on each of the 281 trillion possible combinations, and scan for open ports after each port knocking sequence. As you can probably imagine, this would take a very, very long time.

https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/how-to-obscure-network-ports-with-a-port-knocking-sequence-on-debian-10/

Ask HN: How do you make sure your servers are up as a single founder?

by thr0waway998877 6 November 2019

I'm running a small business on AWS as a solo founder. It's just me. Yesterday I had a service interruption while I was in the London subway. Luckily, I was able to sign in to the AWS console and resolve the issue.

But it does (again) raise the question I'd rather not think about. What if something happens to me and there's another outage that I can't fix?

So - how do you make sure that your servers are up as a one person founder? Can I pay someone to monitor my AWS deploy and make sure it's healthy?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21461617

A highly-flexible new variable font

Built to maximize versatility, control, and performance, Recursive is a five-axis variable font. This enables you to choose from a wide range of predefined styles, or dial in exactly what you want for each of its axes: Proportion, Monospace, Weight, Slant, and Italic. Taking full advantage of variable font technology, Recursive offers an unprecedented level of flexibility, all from a single font file.

https://www.recursive.design/

Remembering The Home Computer Christmas Wars of 1983

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday December 01, 2019 @02:34PM

“1983 had seen an explosion of home computer models of varying capabilities and at various price-points,” remembers the vintage computing site Paleotronic, looking back at the historic tech battle between Commodore, Texas Instruments, and eventually Coleco.

Slashdot reader beaverdownunder shares the site's fond remembrance of the days when “The question on everyone's minds was not who was going to win, but who would survive.”

 > Commodore's Jack Tramiel saw an emerging market for low-cost home computers, releasing the VIC-20 in 1980. At a US$299 price point sales were initially modest, but rival Texas Instruments, making a play for the bottom of the market, would heavily discount its TI99/4A, and start a price war with Commodore that culminated with both computers selling as low as $US99. Only one company was going to walk away... [W]hile TI spokesperson Bill Cosby joked about how easy it was to sell a computer when you gave people US$100 to buy one, Jack Tramiel wasn't going to take this lying down, and he dropped the price of the VIC-20 to US$200 in order to match TI. However, unlike TI, who was selling the 4A at a loss in order to gain market share, Commodore wasn't losing any money at all, since it owned MOS Technology, the maker of many of the chips inside of the VIC-20, and as a result got all of those components at cost. Meanwhile TI was paying full price and haemorrhaging cash on every model sold.

> You would think TI might have realised they were playing a fool's game and back off but instead after Tramiel dropped the wholesale price of the VIC-20 to US$130 they went all-in, dropping the 4A's retail price to $150. Commodore went to $100, and TI matched it, with many retailers selling both machines for $99. Inside TI, Cosby's joke stopped being funny, and many wondered whether management had dug them into a hole they could never climb out of...

> After all the dust had settled, the only real winner was Commodore. It fended off all of its competitors and cemented the Commodore 64 as the low-budget 8-bit computer everyone wanted their parents to buy.

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/19/12/01/1931252/remembering-the-home-computer-christmas-wars-of-1983

Troubling Trends in Machine Learning Scholarship

Zachary C. Lipton, Jacob Steinhardt

(Submitted on 9 Jul 2018 (v1), last revised 26 Jul 2018 (this version, v2))

Collectively, machine learning (ML) researchers are engaged in the creation and dissemination of knowledge about data-driven algorithms. In a given paper, researchers might aspire to any subset of the following goals, among others: to theoretically characterize what is learnable, to obtain understanding through empirically rigorous experiments, or to build a working system that has high predictive accuracy. While determining which knowledge warrants inquiry may be subjective, once the topic is fixed, papers are most valuable to the community when they act in service of the reader, creating foundational knowledge and communicating as clearly as possible.

Recent progress in machine learning comes despite frequent departures from these ideals. In this paper, we focus on the following four patterns that appear to us to be trending in ML scholarship: (i) failure to distinguish between explanation and speculation; (ii) failure to identify the sources of empirical gains, e.g., emphasizing unnecessary modifications to neural architectures when gains actually stem from hyper-parameter tuning; (iii) mathiness: the use of mathematics that obfuscates or impresses rather than clarifies, e.g., by confusing technical and non-technical concepts; and (iv) misuse of language, e.g., by choosing terms of art with colloquial connotations or by overloading established technical terms.

While the causes behind these patterns are uncertain, possibilities include the rapid expansion of the community, the consequent thinness of the reviewer pool, and the often-misaligned incentives between scholarship and short-term measures of success (e.g., bibliometrics, attention, and entrepreneurial opportunity). While each pattern offers a corresponding remedy (don't do it), we also discuss some speculative suggestions for how the community might combat these trends.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.03341

Made in China 8-core x86 CPU arrives to market

The country is making strides in semiconductor self-reliance

By Eric Hamilton, 2 February 2020 10:27 AM

Why it matters: Zhaoxin, a fabless chip maker based in Shanghai, has produced a homegrown x86 CPU line that's apparently ready for the DIY scene. The Zhaoxin KaiXian KX-6000 series of processors were originally shown off in 2018, but since then we had heard little about them. Now it seems that the KX-U6780A will come to market this quarter, as listed on Chinese retail site Taobao with a March release date.

https://www.techspot.com/news/83819-made-china-8-core-x86-cpu-arrives-market.html

The best Chromebooks, Chromeboxes, and Chrome OS tablets you can buy right now (Fall 2019)

Android Police Team Oct 31, 2019

https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/10/31/best-chromebooks/

Chrome Unboxed: CTL opens pre-orders for the best Core i3 Chromebox deal on the market

https://chromeunboxed.com/ctl-chromebox-core-i3-deal-pre-order/

Deal Alert: Get an extra 10% off this customizable Chromebox from CTL

https://chromeunboxed.com/deal-alert-chromebox-ctl-10-percent-off-customize-on-sale/

Trimming systemd Halved The Boot Time On A PocketBeagle ARM Linux Board

Written by Michael Larabel in systemd on 29 October 2019 at 07:42 AM EDT.

SYSTEMD – Happening this week over in Lyon, France is the Embedded Linux Conference Europe and Open-Source Summit Europe events. Developer Chris Simmonds spoke today about systemd and boot time optimizations around it.

Besides going over the basics of systemd that all Phoronix readers should be well familiar with, much of his talk was on reducing the boot time with systemd. For reference he talked about his optimizations using a PocketBeagle ARM board running Debian Stretch.

Debian on this low-power ARM board took 66 seconds to boot with some 18 seconds for the kernel and over 47 seconds for the user-space bits. With some basic tuning, he was able to chop that in half to around 30 seconds.

Among the boot optimizations done were trimming unnecessary services, slimming down systemd in other areas, removing the ttyGS0 service, and eliminating other unnecessary features to achieve a 29 second boot time. Those wanting to learn more can do so via the PDF slide deck from Chris.

While an improvement, a half minute boot time still isn't as impressive as Intel achieving as little as a 300ms boot time with Clear Linux for their stringent use-cases like Clear Linux running in cars where there are strict boot time requirements.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=systemd-trim-boot-ELC-2019

i.MX8M and i.MX8M Mini SMARC modules debut with 3.5-inch carrier

Oct 31, 2019 — by Eric Brown

Ibase’s rugged “RM-N8M” SMARC module runs Linux on an i.MX8M with 3GB soldered LPDDR4 and up to 64GB eMMC. There’s also an upcoming “RM-N8MMI” SMARC that taps the i.MX8M Mini and a new 3.5-inch “RP-103-SMC” carrier. http://linuxgizmos.com/i-mx8m-and-i-mx8m-mini-smarc-modules-debut-with-3-5-inch-carrier/

Rugged embedded computers run Linux on Whiskey Lake

Oct 30, 2019 — by Eric Brown

Vecow launched two compact, rugged embedded PCs with Intel’s 8th Gen Whiskey Lake-UE. The Linux-ready SPC-5000 and -5100 offer 4x 10Gbps USB 3.1 Gen2 ports and SUMIT expansion with optional 10GbE modules, and the RES-3000 features IP67-protected M12 ports.

http://linuxgizmos.com/rugged-embedded-trio-run-linux-on-whiskey-lake/

The 20 Best Raspberry Pi Alternatives Available in 2019

Parijat Dutta

As a single board computer, Raspberry Pi has already earned the reputation of being the prominent one over its competitors. It contains loads of options that include CPU, GPU, Memory, USB ports, Video outputs: HDMI, Network, and so on. But the number of Raspberry Pi alternatives is increasing day by day. The best choice from Raspberry Pi alternatives depends on your goal you are trying to accomplish. For example, while a Pi Zero can complete all the modest tasks, it might not be a good fit for powerful processing. OS, number of ports, supported devices should also be considered while choosing an alternative SBC over Raspberry Pi.

https://www.ubuntupit.com/best-raspberry-pi-alternatives/

The best SSDs

Crucial, Samsung and Western Digital are all key players here.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/11/01/the-best-ssds/

Meet EDSFF: 1PB of flash storage in a single rack

Chris Angelini@chris_angelini October 30, 2019 9:40 AM

A petabyte isn’t what it used to be, thanks to this radical new SSD standard. And that’s good news for enterprises and data centers.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/30/meet-edsff-1pb-of-flash-storage-in-a-single-rack/

Chris Angelini@chris_angelini November 4, 2019 7:39 AM

It never made sense to me that SSDs held on to the 2.5” form factor borrowed from mechanical disks for as long as they did. NAND chips — the non-volatile memory technology that stores data inside of SSDs — offer versatility and resilience against operating shock that spinning platters can only dream of. They’re almost completely unconstrained by physical dimensions. Really, the only reason to continue packing solid-state storage into hard drive enclosures is legacy compatibility.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/04/edsff-in-action-flash-storage-capacity-like-youve-never-seen/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickkurczewski/2019/12/12/5-of-the-best-android-tablets/

Every sysadmin needs a good troubleshooting strategy, and you can't fix a problem if you cannot identify it. These are my favorite commands to quickly filter through the possibilities of a given problem.

Posted November 29, 2019 by Tyler Carrigan

Troubleshooting can be a tricky process, and fixing things requires the right tool. If any of you have ever played a title from From Software (i.e., Dark Souls, Bloodborne, or Sekiro) then you will understand the parallel I'm drawing here. These games are famous for being punishingly hard, particularly when it comes to boss fights. However, once you have a little experience, you realize that many of these seemingly impossible encounters aren't really that tricky, you just need the right tools. Most of these fights have a “mechanic” built into the battle that you can exploit to increase your chances of survival. For example, in Bloodborne, there is a difficult early boss fight against Father Gascoigne. This fight can be hairy (see what I did there), especially early on; however, there is a secret item that you can get by exploring the first area that turns certain death into a potentially survivable situation.

https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/linux-network-troubleshooting-commands

PC on a HDMI “stick”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KKYZL66?da_df=1&tag=dradisplay-20&ascsubtag=ba049380b35e16c49e45ad190659d499_CT&ref_=dra_a_rv_ie_ho_xx_P1902_1000&widget=sp_syn_da_mobile_app&adId=200018473250451&qualifier=1576440903&id=5356624571912547&spPl=1

= Applications =

GNUnet is a new network protocol stack for building secure, distributed, and privacy-preserving applications. With strong roots in academic research, our goal is to replace the old insecure Internet protocol stack.

GNUnet is typically run as an overlay network on top of the existing Internet infrastructure forming the basis of a hybrid peer-to-peer mesh and relay backbone for applications to run on. It could just as well be run independently of the Internet, over dedicated radio and cable.

GNUnet is made for a free and open society: It's a self-organizing network and it is free software as in freedom. GNUnet puts you in control of your data. You determine which data to share with whom, and you're not pressured to accept compromises.

https://gnunet.org/en/index.html

by Zeeman Memon, 4 November 2019

If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last 10 years or so, it’s certain that you’ve come across the term ‘torrent’. Torrents provide users the ability to download files in minuscule chunks from a large number of users. Torrents became popular for two major reasons: 1. The ability to pause and resume downloads on will (something which wasn’t widely available when they launched) and 2. For being able to pirate content.

The pause and resume feature blew my mind when I first came across roughly 13-14 years ago. I had a very useless dialup internet connection and it was impossible to be able to download anything larger than a few megabytes without it being disconnected. Torrents solved a huge problem for me and soon after, download managers with such abilities became widespread.

https://linuxhint.com/top_ten_torrenting_clients_linux/

by Derrik Diener Nov 30, 2019

Slack is a chat app for the workplace. It is used to organize teams, discuss projects, and communicate with co-workers. Overall, Slack is an excellent product and has many useful features. However, not everyone on Linux appreciates Slack. So, in this list, we will discuss the 4 best Slack alternatives on Linux.

1. Mattermost
2. Riot
3. Flock
4. Zulip

manage dotfiles with stow

https://github.com/codejamninja/dotstow

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-deploy-a-container-with-ansible/

How to keep your hair and increase productivity using Jinja2 templates with Ansible.

Posted October 31, 2019 by Tim Fairweather

Jinja templates in Ansible can be very powerful. They can also be a leading contributor to hair loss. Why? In some ways it comes down to documentation, a mixing of languages (YAML, Python, Jinja2), and variables.

https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/ansible-jinja

Here are five ideas for security automation.

30 Oct 2019 Mark Phillips (Red Hat) Feed

Ansible has long been seen as more than configuration management—it's an orchestrator more than anything, a conductor of the orchestra rather than playing a singular instrument. Since realising this, various tech communities have used Ansible to automate some interesting technology arenas.

https://opensource.com/article/19/10/how-introduce-your-security-team-ansible

Tim Fairweather, 16 Feb 2017

Jinja templates in Ansible can be very powerful. They can also be a leading contributor to hair loss. Why? In some ways it comes down to documentation, a mixing of languages (YAML, Python, Jinja2), and variables.

During a recent consulting project with a customer, focused on network automation, we embarked on a journey to re-evaluate how routers were provisioned. A significant part of this initiative was to dynamically create configuration templates for routers, based on variable input. In developing the j2 (the Jinja2 templating language) logic to do things like calculate bandwidth figures, we ran into some limitations. Mainly the ability to have a variable’s value accessible outside of the loop that is currently being run.

https://www.arctiq.ca/our-blog/2017/2/16/ansible-jinja-warrior-loop-variable-scope/

by Ravi Saive | Published: October 25, 2019

In the previous two articles of this Ansible Series, we’ve explained Core Components of Ansible and Setting Up Ansible Control Node. In this part 3, we will demonstrate how you can configure Ansible managed nodes to run ad-hoc commands on remote hosts.

https://www.tecmint.com/configure-ansible-managed-nodes-and-run-ad-hoc-commands/

by James Kiarie | Published: November 4, 2019

In this Part 4 of Ansible Series], we will explain how to use static and dynamic inventory to define groups of hosts in Ansible. https://www.tecmint.com/use-static-and-dynamic-inventory-in-ansible/ ---- ====== How to Work with Ansible Variables and Facts – Part 8 ====== https://www.tecmint.com/ansible-variables-and-facts/ ---- ====== Ansible - Only do action if on specific distribution ====== (Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS or RHEL) or distribution version (ubuntu precise, ubuntu trusty) - Raymii.org https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Ansible_-_Only_if_on_specific_distribution_or_distribution_version.html https://thenewstack.io/how-to-deploy-a-container-using-ansible/ ---- ====== How to Deploy a Container Using Ansible - The New Stack ====== ---- == Content Management == === General === What’s Next For Content Management Systems https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultalbot/2019/10/25/whats-next-for-content-management-systems/ ---- === Word Press === ====== Calculate WordPress usage worldwide ====== The following script will analyze the list of the first million domains with the most visits to give you the percentage of use. Warning that it can take a long time: between 20 to 30 days. https://github.com/tanrax/calculate-wordpress-usage == CRM == '''Show HN: Micro CRM, a CRM for People Who Hate CRMs''' 145 points by charly1811 2 days ago | hide | past | web | favorite | 84 comments Hello Community! My name is Charles-Eugene Loubao, I am a software developer who recently turned into an Indie Maker and I am sharing my new product with you today. Micro CRM is a Customer Relationship Managment web app built to be easy to use and intuitive. Most CRMs can be complicated to use and come with an expensive price tag. Micro CRM is built to fill that need for a much simpler and cheaper contact managment platform that offers compeling features without being overwhelming. What can I do with it ? - Keep all your contacts in one place - Timestamped notes can be used to keep track of events associated with your contacts, or as a call log. By getting the Premium Plan you also can also: - Import your existing contacts from Excel CSV files - Organize easily with tags - Create email reminders to help you remember follow-ups What's next ? Micro CRM is in it's early days and I am planning on adding the following features: - Search - Sorting and Filtering - Custom fields - Contact attachments (files, links, images, etc) - Team Collaboration - Possible Integrations (email, calendar, Slack, etc) How much does it cost ? Micro CRM is free to use for manual entry and simple contact managment. The premium plan is $5/month and for a limited time I am offering a free 30 days trial with no credit card required when you create your account. Head to https://microcrm.cc and create your free account today! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21403091 == DNS == ====== How to find a website’s DNS (name server) address ====== last updated November 2, 2019 How can I find a website’s DNS address? How do I check the current DNS servers of a domain or website using a Linux or macOS command line option? How do I find DNS address of a website using bash? DNS stands for “Domain Name System“. The DNS is a naming system for computers, servers and other network devices over the Internet. DNS is created for us to translate human-friendly computer names into IP addresses. This page shows how to use Linux, *BSD, macOS, and Unix command dig or host to find DNS addresses and names. https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-to-find-a-websites-dns-name-server-address/ ---- ====== DNS Wars ====== November 2019 by Geoff Huston NANOG is now quite an institution in the Internet, particularly in the North American Internet community. It was an offshoot of the Regional Techs meetings, which were part of the NSFNET framework of the late 80s and early 90s. NANOG has thrived since then and is certainly one of the major network operational forums in today’s Internet, if not the preeminent forum for network operators for the entire Internet. The 77th NANOG meeting was held in Austin, Texas at the end of October and they invited Farsight’s Paul Vixie to deliver a keynote presentation. These are my thoughts in response to his presentation, and they are my interpretation of Paul’s talk and more than a few of my opinions thrown in for good measure! https://www.potaroo.net/ispcol/2019-11/dnswars.html ---- ====== How to Setup a DNS/DHCP Server Using dnsmasq on CentOS/RHEL 8/7 ====== by Aaron Kili | Published: November 1, 2019 A Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server dynamically assigns IP addresses and other network configuration parameters to each device on a network. A DNS forwarder on a LAN forwards DNS queries for non-local domain names to upstream DNS servers (outside that network). A DNS caching server answers recursive requests from clients so that the DNS query can be resolved faster, thus improving DNS lookup speeds to previously visited sites. dnsmasq is a lightweight, easy to configure DNS forwarder, DHCP server software and router advertisement subsystem for small networks. Dnsmasq supports Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X as well as Android. https://www.tecmint.com/setup-a-dns-dhcp-server-using-dnsmasq-on-centos-rhel/ ---- ====== Multicast DNS ====== This is part of a series of post on the design and technical steps of creating [[https://www.enricozini.org/blog/2019/himblick|Himblick, a digital signage box based on the Raspberry Pi 4.

We now have little box that can connect to the wifi, and we can easily give it a name like “frontentrance” or “room3ceiling”.

It would be nice if people who need to manage media on the display, could be able to connect via sftp or a web interface to a box given its name. Thankfully it's 2019 (almost 2020) and this doesn't require tinkering with interfacing the DHCP server with the local DNS anymore.

https://www.enricozini.org/blog/2019/himblick/multicast-dns/

Geany is a programmer friendly open source text editor for Windows, Linux, macOS by Ashwin on October 31, 2019 Geany is an open source cross platform text editor that is designed specifically for programmers thanks to its built-in support for over 50 programming languages. https://www.ghacks.net/2019/10/31/geany-is-a-programmer-friendly-open-source-text-editor-for-windows-linux-macos/

By Ben Stockton – Posted on Nov 6, 2019 in Linux

There’s no denying that, for new Linux users, using the terminal is pretty scary. Scarier still is the thought of editing files at the terminal, with editors like Vim and GNU Emacs proving to be difficult for beginners to get their head around. For example, even exiting Vim proves to be a difficult task for many.

https://www.maketecheasier.com/linux-nano-text-editor-beginner-guide/

Manipulating PDFs

April 29, 2010 by Jonathan Palardy

In Vim, I’ve been using splits for years. Splits are great:

  view 2 files at the same time
  view 2 parts of the same file at the same time
  dump bits of text into a new split
  dump command outputs into a new split
  and so on…

However, I’ve been using the subset of splits that I understood while shying away from advanced use cases. Somewhere down my TODO list, there was an item called “understand Vim splits”. This blog post is an attempt to document what I discovered. https://technotales.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/vim-splits-a-guide-to-doing-exactly-what-you-want/

Posted Oct 30, 2019 https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-copy-cut-paste-in-vim/

Simple and Elegant Markdown Editor

Focused on speed and usability.

Available for macOS, Windows and Linux.

https://marktext.app/

BY MAGESH MARUTHAMUTHU · LAST UPDATED: DECEMBER 5, 2019

Sending email from the command line is required when you need to create emails from a shell script.

https://www.2daygeek.com/6-ways-to-send-email-from-the-linux-command-line/?fbclid=IwAR0jngPw1Ahwu64Ae7vs6nNSB6louiErfrIoF-duHPqi88Vkh5bh1hjriio

Dimitar Nikov

!DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) allows a person or organisation to claim responsibility for an email message by associating a domain name with the message.

The purpose of DKIM is to authenticate that the content of any DKIM-signed email message is not modified during the transfer between sender’s or ISP (Internet Service Provider) and receiver’s mail servers.

https://www.20i.com/blog/dkim-demystified/

How to install and configure Dovecot Here are the basics of how to install, set up, and troubleshoot the Dovecot mail server. Posted October 31, 2019 by Gabby Taylor https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/install-configure-dovecot

by Ashwin on November 01, 2019 in Linux, Mac - 5 comments

The program nnn is one of the lightest file managers available for Linux, macOS, BSDs. It is not your traditional file browser though as it lacks a graphical user interface.

https://www.ghacks.net/2019/11/01/nnn-is-an-excellent-command-line-based-file-manager-for-linux-macos-and-bsds/

Kris Wouk April 3, 2019

For years, Dropbox has been the mostly undisputed king of cloud storage. Unless you’re heavily invested in another ecosystem, Dropbox’s free storage offers more than enough for most people. Slowly but surely, however, the company’s free offering is becoming less attractive.

In March of 2019, Dropbox quietly introduced a limit on how many devices you can use with a free account. Whereas before there was no limit, now you only use three devices on a free account. For many people, this may not matter, but for others, it’s a sign that it’s time to look at other services.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-self-hosted-dropbox-alternatives-tested/

1 November 2019 by Sidratul Muntaha

https://linuxhint.com/mount_google_drive_linux_mint/

Updated November 18, 2019By Jamie Arthur

A firewall is a security feature that filters incoming and outgoing traffic and keeps at bay potentially malicious applications. Additionally, a firewall gives the systems administrator the authority to determine which services and ports to allow and which ones to block or disallow. In this tutorial, you will learn how to stop and disable the firewall on CentOS 8.

On Linux, there are many firewall systems. The most commonly used firewalls are 'Firewalld' and 'Iptables'. Firewalld is a front-end dynamic firewall management service made available by default on both CentOS and Fedora servers. Firewalld is a powerful firewall management service and has now replaced Iptables. It manages both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic.

https://linoxide.com/linux-how-to/stop-and-disable-firewall-on-centos/

The update also expands the Remote Play Together beta.

Jon Fingas, (@jonfingas) - 10.30.19 in Services

Your Steam game collection is about to look decidedly different. Valve has released a Steam update that brings the redesigned Library to everyone, giving you a smarter (and hopefully easier) view of your catalog. There's now a central hub with game news, friend activity, recent games and the Collections you create either by hand or with search criteria. You'll also see Events that showcase ongoing activities in games, such as special multiplayer weekends or new add-ons. Think of it as a way to surface a long-lost favorite or keep in touch with what others are playing.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/30/steam-library-redesign-available-to-everyone/

30th November 2019

In this article, we will show you how to install GitLab Community Edition on an Ubuntu 18.04 Cloud VPS.

GitLab is an open source application that allows a team or developer to manage their project on their own servers – it’s an alternative to GitHub.

https://www.linuxcloudvps.com/blog/how-to-install-gitlab-on-ubuntu-18-04/

Check out these tips before you plan your next trip.

Katie Conner. November 3, 2019 5:30 AM PST

Driving is stressful enough, but it becomes even more of a task when you can't find a parking spot or you lose signal and a turn is coming up soon. Fortunately, the Google Maps app for Android and iPhone ($699 at Amazon) can remove a bit of the strain of driving with some of its hidden features.

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/4-hidden-google-maps-tricks-you-should-know-now/

https://www.engadget.com/2019/12/14/google-maps-images/

By Neeraj Chand – Posted on Nov 30, 2019

Google is the popular option whenever you need to find out information about any subject under the sun. In addition, you can also use the search engine giant to look for any photo ever published online. But what if you already have a photo but desire more information about its source? Fortunately, Google offers a method of reverse-engineering an image search to find out the details regarding when and where an image was originally published, the contents of the image and any other detail found online.

https://www.maketecheasier.com/find-image-source-using-google/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds

It wants to know how and why Google gathers ad and search data.

Jon Fingas, @jonfingas, 11.30.19

No, European antitrust regulators still aren't done looking into Google's practices. The European Commission told Reuters in a statement that it's conducting a “preliminary investigation” into Google's data collection. While it didn't go into detail, a leaked document indicated that the focuses were on local search, ads (including ad targeting), sign-in services and web browsers, among “others.” It's covering the core of Google's businesses, to put it another way.

We've asked Google for comment. In the past, it explained that it used data to improve its services and gave users controls to manage and delete their info.

An investigation doesn't necessarily guarantee the EU will file an antitrust case. However, officials have previously slapped Google with over €8 billion (about $8.8 billion) in fines over allegations of restrictive ad contracts, anti-competitive Android policies and similar claims. It wouldn't be shocking if the Commission found issues with Google's data gathering methods, especially when national regulators have already fined Google for reported GDPR violations.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/11/30/eu-investigates-google-data-collection/

Erez Rabih Dec 2, 2019

For a long time, the StatsD + Graphite stack was the go-to solution when considering backend stacks for time-series collection and storage.

In recent years, with the increased adoption of Kubernetes, Prometheus has been gaining more and more attention as an alternative solution for the classic Graphite + StatsD stack. As a matter of fact, Prometheus was initially developed by SoundCloud exactly for that purpose — to replace their Graphite + StatsD stack they used for monitoring. Later on, in July 2016, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), the organization responsible for Kubernetes and multiple other related projects (Helm for example), has adopted Prometheus as an official project of the foundation.

https://engineering.nanit.com/from-graphite-to-prometheus-things-ive-learned-e1d1e4b97fc

by James Kiarie · Published November 4, 2019 · Updated November 4, 2019

In the previous article, we demonstrated how to install Nagios Core on CentOS 8 / RHEL 8 server. In this guide, we will dive deeper and add Linux and Windows hosts to the Nagios Core server for monitoring.

https://www.linuxtechi.com/add-windows-linux-host-to-nagios-server/

by sk · November 5, 2019

A while ago, we have written about Netdata, a lightweight, real-time performance and health monitoring tool for systems and applications. It monitors almost everything in a system and displays the result in a nice graphical layout in the web browser. Netdata requires no configuration and no dependencies either. It just works out of the box. Today, I stumbled upon a similar utility. Say hello to Doppler, a zero configuration remote monitoring tool for Linux systems. Just like Netdata, Doppler is also lightweight and it doesn’t require any additional configuration.

https://www.ostechnix.com/doppler-a-zero-configuration-remote-monitoring-tool/

01 Nov 2019 James J (Sysadmin/Engineer/Developer)

'Description'

If you have worked with Linux for any length of time, you have had to deal with a Debian Packages. Have you ever seen what goes into making a Debian Package? It gets a little intimidating with all of the helper methods, and configuration necessary to make a well rounded deb. Lets not do any of that. Instead let’s explore the absolute minimum requirements to spit out a functional Debian Package… and maybe a few necessary bells and whistles.

http://jhurani.com/linux/2019/11/01/minimal-dpkg.html

By Joey Sneddon · Updated 03 December 2019

I often forget how to remove a PPA from Ubuntu, so I figured I’d write a quick guide here to remind me — and to help anyone else who needs it!

Now, there are several ways to remove a PPA from Ubuntu, Linux Mint and other Ubuntu-based Linux distributions. You can use your mouse (aka the GUI way) or you can use your keyboard (aka the CLI way)

In this post I show you both methods. But I will say upfront that the CLI method, while scarier looking, is by far the fastest and safest to use.

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/12/how-to-remove-ppa-ubuntu

by Ivan Vanney, 3 November 2019

SELinux is a labeling system for processes and files. Labeled subjects access to labeled objects is restricted by rules forming policies. This tutorial is an introduction to SELinux basics showing how to setup and enable SELinux on Debian 10 Buster and enable it with some additional information on popular commands.

Before starting you’ll need to learn the following concepts: * Subjects: processes or users. * Objects: files or filesystems. * Type Enforcement: on SELinux all subjects and objects have a type identifier ending with _t. “Type enforcement is the notion that, in a mandatory access control system, access is governed through clearance based on a subject-access-object set of rules. * Discretionary Access Control (DAC): DAC is the ownership and permission system we use in Linux to manage access to objects like files or directories. The Discretionary Access Control has nothing to do with SELinux and is a different security layer. For additional information on DAC visit Linux Permissions Explained. * Mandatory Access Control (MAC): is a type of access control which restricts subjects access interaction with objects. Contrary to DAC with MAC users can’t change policies.

 Subjects and objects have a security context (security attributes) monitored by SELinux and administered according to security policies made by rules to be enforced.

* Role Based Access Control (RBAC): is a type of access control based on roles, it can be combined with both MAC and DAC. RBAC policies make management of many users within an organization simple in contrast to DAC which can derive in individual permission assignments, it makes auditing, configuration and policy updates easier. * Enforcing mode: SELinux restricts subjects access to objects based on policies. * Permissive mode: SELinux only logs illegitimate activity.

https://linuxhint.com/selinux_debian_10/

https://dev.to/bobbyiliev/how-to-keep-a-process-running-even-after-closing-ssh-connection-3cek

http://www.vassox.com/linux-general/reverse-ssh-tunneling-between-two-linux-hosts/

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-use-per-host-ssh-configuration/

https://blog.cloudflare.com/public-keys-are-not-enough-for-ssh-security/

https://kalilinuxtutorials.com/sshtunnel-ssh-tunnels-remote-server/

https://null-byte.wonderhowto.com/how-to/run-your-favorite-graphical-x-applications-over-ssh-0199624/

https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/ssh-proxy-bastion-proxyjump

Hunt down social media accounts by username across social networks

Use this link to test Sherlock directly in your browser: https://elody.com/scenario/plan/16/

NOTE: Python 3.6 or higher is required.

https://github.com/sherlock-project/sherlock

Jordan Crook@jordanrcrook / 7:00 am PST • November 5, 2019

Though the social media landscape is dominated by a few major players, consumers still seem to want something new and different. Just look at TikTok.

Today, a new social app is launching called Friended, which is taking an altogether different strategy when it comes to connecting people online. Friended was started by Thumb cofounder and CEO Dan Kurani, Friended wants to give users a deeper and more meaningful connection to one another, which the company believes they crave.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/05/friended-is-a-new-social-network-that-wants-to-get-real/

Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 1st of December 2019 03:12:11 PM

Mastodon’s quest to federate the Internet continues with the imminent launch of a photo-sharing platform which promises to be more privacy-focussed and to give more power to netizens

Mastodon is not done making headlines. One November 26, the open-source and federated platform announced, via Twitter, that they would be launching Pixelfed, “a fediverse alternative to Instagram and other photo sharing platforms.” Tacked on the end of the tweet is the hashtag #TheFutureIsFederated.

The tweet is a quote-tweet from the Pixelfed The only form of explanation comes in a teaser video. “What is the fediverse? It’s magic. A platform for the people. And we mean everyone. We’ll be arriving soon! Power to the people. Pixelfed.org,” says the video.

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/internet/mastodon-announces-pixelfed-an-open-source-alternative-to-instagram/article30087768.ece

Asked 31 October 2019

Is Stack Exchange in violation of New York labor law, in using volunteer moderators?

I found a New York State Department of Labor - Division of Labor Standards Frequently Asked Questions document, which states:

> Q: Can for-profit and non-profitmaking institutions have unpaid volunteers?

> A: By definition, the term volunteer means a person who works for a non-profitmaking institution under no contract of hire…and with no promise of compensation, other than reimbursement for expenses as part of the conditions of work. A person may do volunteer work in a non-profit organization, if that organization is set up and operates strictly for charitable, educational or religious purposes. For-profit organizations may not use unpaid volunteers (who meet certain criteria) except for a short term recreational or amusement event run by that organization.

Am I drawing the correct conclusion, that actually a for-profit organization, such as Stack Exchange, is not permitted, under New York State labor law, to use volunteer labor for moderation tasks?

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/337117/is-stack-exchange-in-violation-of-new-york-labor-law-in-using-volunteer-moderat

Last Updated: December 2, 2019 Xiao Guoan

Terminal is the interface through which you type cryptic Linux commands, but is terminal just a window with command prompt on your Linux desktop? Well, the fact is, the terminal you are using now is probably not a real terminal. In this article I will be explaining the real meaning of Linux terminal and console. Understanding this basic concept is important if you want to master Linux.

https://www.linuxbabe.com/command-line/linux-terminal

by sk · Published October 29, 2019 · Updated October 29, 2019

Alacritty is a cross-platform, GPU-accelerated terminal emulator. It is an OpenGL terminal emulator written in Rust Programming language. Thanks to the OpenGL renderer and the high throughput parser, Alacritty is incredibly fast and extremely lightweight Terminal emulator in existence. Since it has been developed to focus only on simplicity and performance in mind, Alacritty Terminal emulator doesn’t include many fancy features like tabs and spilts that you use in other Terminal emulators, for example Terminology. It supports major operating systems, including Linux, BSD, Mac OS, and Windows.

https://www.ostechnix.com/alacritty-a-lightweight-and-blazingly-fast-terminal-emulator/

Christian Cawley October 31, 2019

Running software is a virtual machine (VM) is a great way to try apps designed for a different operating system. VM technology is widely used these days across a range of applications, from servers to desktop computers.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/tips-performance-virtual-machine/

October 30, 2019 Scott McCarty

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 has been generally available since May, but we know that many customers cannot upgrade immediately. For this reason, we have released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.7 with a set of new container capabilities focusing on updates to container tools and Red Hat Universal Base Image (UBI):

1. Rootless containers are available as Tech Preview.
2. RHEL 7 Workstation now includes container tools (Podman, Buildah, and Skopeo).
3. The golang container image is now available under the Red Hat Universal Base Image End User License Agreement (EULA).

https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/three-new-container-capabilities-red-hat-enterprise-linux-77

Learn how Docker and Kubernetes are changing application development and how these key container technologies fit together

By Serdar Yegulalp Senior Writer, InfoWorld | Oct 30, 2019

if you’ve kept up with the latest trends in software development, there are two terms you’ve undoubtedly encountered again and again: Docker and Kubernetes, which are essentially shorthand for containers and orchestration.

https://www.infoworld.com/article/3447659/kubernetes-vs-docker-understand-containers-and-orchestration.html

by editor · Published November 1, 2019

In the case of Docker, data will be stored inside the container. And when we remove the container data will be lost. In this guide, we will learn how to create docker volumes, how to attach it to the containers and how the same volume can be shared across two or more containers for storing the data.

https://www.ostechnix.com/explaining-docker-volumes-with-examples/

by Pradeep Kumar · Published December 2, 2019 · Updated December 2, 2019

Docker is a daemon-based container engine which allows us to deploy applications inside containers. With the release of RHEL 8 and CentOS 8, docker package has been removed from their default package repositories, docker has been replaced with podman and buildah.

https://www.linuxtechi.com/install-docker-ce-centos-8-rhel-8/

by Jack Wallen on July 23, 2019, 7:29 AM PST

Learn the very basics of the Docker Compose file.

Docker Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. In other words, if you have a need to define a service that requires more than one Docker container to function, Docker Compose might be the tool for you.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-build-a-docker-compose-file/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/20-vps-providers-to-shut-down-on-monday-giving-customers-two-days-to-save-their-data/

Download instantly, scrape in the cloud, or create an API

https://simplescraper.io/

free and open conference management system

frab is a web-based conference planning and management system. It helps to collect submissions, to manage talks and speakers and to create a schedule.

http://frab.github.io/frab/

Stop wasting time checking out websites to see if something has changed.

Every time a webpage changes, Monitoro calls your webhook with the scraped data.

https://www.monitoro.xyz

!NoSnoop is a standalone, browser-independent application that will perform SSL/TLS handshakes with a list of 250 popular websites and examine the certificate chains received from each server. It will alert on any unexpected certificates.

!NoSnoop will check for obvious cases (such as interception by a local proxy, your employer's SSL inspection gateways, or a malware infection), as well as more advanced attacks (for instance, if the root cert is valid but issued by an unexpected organization or country).

An entire scan typically takes less than 30 seconds.

Note: Currently, !NoSnoop only supports Windows 7 and later.

https://www.trustprobe.com/fs1/nosnoop.html

Sep 11, 2019

Over the past year, I have spent a lot of time digging into cloud infrastructure and technical tools as a space for investing. One of the emergent behaviors of technology trends is the accelerating advantage of being a winner, played out with network effects or scale effects (or both!). Since its mid-2000’s launch, AWS has obviously become a juggernaut, growing so quickly and throwing off so much cash that even Amazon can’t put it to work fast enough (!). Getting a new software product to market has never been as cheap or fast as it is today, despite the fact that the surface area of in-depth knowledge required to build high-performing software has never been higher.

https://www.tclauson.com/2019/09/11/Unbundling-AWS.html

AWS Open Source Blog

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/consistent-oidc-authentication-across-multiple-eks-clusters-using-kube-oidc-proxy/

John Williams / posted on January 10, 2020

Back in November, we noticed something odd happening with large uploads to Amazon S3. Uploads would pause for 10 seconds at a time and then resume. It had us baffled. When we started to dig, what we found left us with more questions than answers about S3 and AWS networking.

https://m.signalvnoise.com/aws-s3-youre-out-of-order/

Last Updated May 21, 2019

https://civihosting.com/blog/nextcloud-vs-owncloud/

People who want ready access to their personal files, documents, images, music, and videos wherever they are, are resorting more and more to cloud storage. Services like Dropbox, OneDrive, or Apple iCloud provide an attractive and practical alternative to local storage on a computer, tablet, or smartphone, thanks to the accessibility offered by the Internet. However, there is still the question of how secure and safe your sensitive information is when stored in the cloud.

https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/server/tools/owncloud-vs-nextcloud-a-comparison/

By Nick Congleton – Posted on Dec 5, 2018

OwnCloud vs Nextcloud vs Seafile

Cloud storage is becoming more popular than ever. It’s a convenient way to have your files accessible from anywhere, and when most devices today are portable, the importance of that can’t be overstated. Cloud storage also represents the only practical way for most people to keep offsite backups of data, which is a critical piece of any good security plan.

https://www.maketecheasier.com/nextcloud-vs-owncloud-vs-seafile/

By John Kibet - September 24, 2019

Introduction

File synchronization is a way for individuals and companies to back up their mission critical files on an external drive or server. It is important to have exact copies of your most important files on a secondary location just in case where you currently store them experience disaster which often happen. Let us have a brief view of some opensource file synchronization applications looking at their features and why you should use any of them.

https://computingforgeeks.com/nextcloud-vs-owncloud-vs-seafile-vs-syncthing/

https://linuxhint.com/top_lightweight_web_browsers_linux/

last updated December 1, 2019

How do I enable and configure TLS 1.2 and 1.3 only in Nginx web server?

TLS is an acronym for Transport Layer Security. It is cryptographic protocols designed to provide network communications security. TLS used by websites and other apps such as IM (instant messaging), email, web browsers, VoIP, and more to secure all communications between their server and client. This page explains how to enable and configure Nginx to use TLS 1.2 and 1.1 version only.

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/configure-nginx-to-use-only-tls-1-2-and-1-3/

https://opensource.com/article/19/12/openbox-linux-desktop

November 2, 2019

RedNotebook, desktop diary and personal journaling tool, released version 2.12 today. Here’s how to install it in all current Ubuntu releases.

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2019/11/install-rednotebook-2-12-ubuntu-19-10-18-04/

Akshata Shanbhag November 2, 2019

What makes the Bullet Journal method of note-taking so popular? It’s the magic combination of speed, structure, and flexibility!

Once you understand how to set up your bullet journal and personalize it, you can capture any aspect of your day, work, and life in a streamlined manner. If you’re new to this method and find it daunting or if you just need a refresher on its essentials once in a while, our cheat sheet below can help.

Refer to the cheat sheet for quick descriptions of key Bullet Journal terms and symbols, and for a walkthrough of the logging process. You’ll also find ideas for Bullet Journal Collections and signifiers in the list.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/bullet-journal-cheat-sheet-quick-note-taking/

https://linuxhint.com/install_xournal_note_taking_ubuntu/

https://linuxhint.com/install_write_note_taking_app_ubuntu/

Ben Stegner Updated November 1, 2019

You might think of a ruler as something only kids in school or carpenters use. But occasionally, everyone has a need for an old-fashioned ruler. If you don’t have a real ruler handy, why not use a computer ruler?

While they won’t help you draw a straight line, you can use these on-screen rulers to make small measurements. Let’s look at some useful options you can use on your desktop and phone.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/irulernet-ruler-on-your-computer/

by Aaron Kili | Published: October 30, 2019

Diagrams are a great means for us to connect with information and process its significance; they help in communicating relationships and abstract information and enable us to visualize concepts.

The flowchart and diagramming tools are used for everything from basic workflow diagrams to complex network diagrams, organization charts, BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation), UML diagrams and much more.

Are you looking for free and open-source flowchart and diagramming software to create different kinds of diagrams, flowcharts, illustrations, maps, web graphics and more, on a Linux desktop? This article reviews 10 best flowcharts and diagramming software for Linux.

1. LibreOffice Draw
2. Apache OpenOffice Draw
3. yED Graph Editor
4. Inkscape
5. Dia Diagram Editor
6. Calligra Flow
7. Graphviz
8. Pencil
9. PlantUML
10. Umbrello

https://www.tecmint.com/best-flowchart-and-diagramming-software-for-linux/

= Operating Systems =

Thom Holwerda 2019-10-30 In the News 15 Comments

I love files. I love renaming them, moving them, sorting them, changing how they’re displayed in a folder, backing them up, uploading them to the internet, restoring them, copying them, and hey, even defragging them. As a metaphor for a way of storing a piece of information, I think they’re great. I like the file as a unit of work. If I need to write an article, it goes in a file. If I need to produce an image, it’s in a file.
[…]

I’ve had a love of files since I first started creating them in Windows 95. But I’ve noticed we are starting to move away from the file as a fundamental unit of work.

There are forces at work to create as large a distance between the user and her files as possible, because not only do files represent a certain amount of user agency and control, they also represent a massive data mine for companies to profit from.

https://www.osnews.com/story/130834/computer-files-are-going-extinct/

by Mats Tage Axelsson 05 November 2019

Sinit is part of the suckless tools, these tools was designed to be as small and efficient as possible. In the effort to make them small, they also do away with many features. It is for this reason, you may want to use them, it is also why you have to use something else. To deploy these, you will need to decide what features you need and compile them in. This is why you can push ‘small’ to the extremes with the sinit package. The downside is that you must do many things yourself, this includes finding that other system to control daemons.

https://linuxhint.com/sinit_linux_startup/

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/11/half-an-operating-system-the-triumph-and-tragedy-of-os2/

https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/dejmvz/collapse_os_bootstrap_postcollapse_technology/

https://collapseos.org/

https://github.com/hsoft/collapseos

November 3, 2019 by Albert Valbuena

https://www.adminbyaccident.com/politics/linux-vs-open-source-unix/

01 November 2019 1158 by Ivan Vanney

If you need to create a Linux distribution, then this tutorial will clarify important issues while giving a fast view on the creation processes. This article focuses con Linux From Scratch and Ubuntu Live as ways to customize a Linux distribution. The steps and commands shown are not meant to be functional but to portray the difficulty level of each process. In the future each process will be explained on new updates at LinuxHint.

https://linuxhint.com/tools_create_own_linux_distribution/

Based on the CentOS 7.7-1908 operating system

Nov 6, 2019 17:30 GMT · By Marius Nestor

NethServer's Alessio Fattorini informs Softpedia today on the general availability of the Cockpit Edition of the NethServer 7.7 server-oriented, Linux-based operating system.

The Cockpit Edition of NethServer 7.7, which is based on CentOS 7.7, is now complete and available by default on new installations, making server administration easier with a modern, redesigned and user-friendly web UI, as well as improved usability and new features.

https://news.softpedia.com/news/nethserver-7-7-cockpit-edition-linux-os-arrives-with-nextcloud-17-ui-changes-528126.shtml

Last Updated: November 4, 2019

Arronax helps create .desktop files for any program/script, customize it, and even make it appear in the application launcher.

If you are a programmer and have created a program to automate something that you have to do repeatedly, it is pretty easy to set it up in such a way that you can directly execute it from the command-line. But what about GUI? There are specific ways, yes, but not more comfortable than what we are introducing in this article.

Arronax helps create .desktop files for any program/script, customize it, and even make it appear in the application launcher.

https://www.fosslinux.com/23858/arronax-lets-you-create-desktop-starter-files-desktop-files-on-ubuntu.htm

last updated December 1, 2019

I‘m a new Ubuntu Linux user and noticed that old kernel still exists in my system. Why doesn’t Ubuntu remove old kernels automatically? How do I delete old unused kernel images to free disk space. How to remove unused old kernel images on Ubuntu Linux safely?

You need to delete and remove old kernels from the system manually. Ubuntu and Debian based system keeps old kernel images so that the system can be booted if newer kernel failed. The safest way to purge and remove old kernels is as follows. This page describes how to delete unused old kernel images on an Ubuntu or Debian Linux to free disk space as well as the various state of the linux-image package.

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/debian-ubuntu-linux-delete-old-kernel-images-command/

30 November 2019 by Swapnil Tirthakar

Ubuntu has become very popular operating system not only among programmers and developers but also among normal day-to-day users and gamers. Recently, Canonical has released latest Ubuntu 19.10 “Eoan Ermine” and it comes with many useful upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Doesn’t matter if you’re are normal or a pro user, every time you install new operating system there is a same question comes to everyone’s mind, what to do next and how to setup operating system for long term use?

So today in this article, I’m going to show you 40 things you can do after installing Ubuntu on your system. This is not limited to Ubuntu 19.10; you can follow these on any version of Ubuntu to set it up according to your requirements.

https://linuxhint.com/40_things_after_installing_ubuntu/

illumos is a Unix operating system which provides next-generation features for downstream distributions, including advanced system debugging, next generation filesystem, networking, and virtualization options.

https://www.illumos.org/

by Zeeman Memon, 3 November 2019

The following article is a guide to installing Linux on a Mac PC. Most of the time we opt for Linux operating systems but are confused about the hardware requirements. The tutorial will help you run Linux system on your Mac which will completely replace the original OS. Read on below to find out:

https://linuxhint.com/install_linux_on_mac/

Wednesday 27th November 2019

PureDarwin is a community project to make Darwin, the open source operating system developed by Apple Inc. that macOS is built upon, more usable by providing bootable ISOs and documentation.

https://www.jamieweb.net/blog/a-look-at-puredarwin/

https://ryanvm.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10321

= Security =

Start tightening up your server security by lowering your attack surface.

Posted October 29, 2019 | Nathan Lager

Linux systems are complicated things. Out of the box, every distribution includes a number of services meant to help you get things up and running. Some distributions enable fewer services by default, and some enable more. The difference is in convenience. Some distributions try to get you up and running quickly, so they have a large set of default services enabled to make it easier for you to get set up, logged in, and configured. Others take the opposite approach and install almost nothing by default.

This article is the start of a short series, where we’ll talk a bit about hardening, a bit about segmentation, and finally how to scan our networks to see if we got it right. So hang on and let me show you through a few layers of defense.

1. Install less software
2. Identify open ports
3. Disable services

https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/reduce-attack-surface

https://www.howtogeek.com/447906/how-to-control-sudo-access-on-linux/

Think you know everything about sudo? Think again.

29 Oct 2019 Peter Czanik

Everybody knows sudo, right? This tool is installed by default on most Linux systems and is available for most BSD and commercial Unix variants. Still, after talking to hundreds of sudo users, the most common answer I received was that sudo is a tool to complicate life.

There is a root user and there is the su command, so why have yet another tool? For many, sudo was just a prefix for administrative commands. Only a handful mentioned that when you have multiple administrators for the same system, you can use sudo logs to see who did what.

https://opensource.com/article/19/10/know-about-sudo

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-chrome-password-stealer-sends-stolen-data-to-a-mongodb-database/

https://www.techradar.com/news/whats-the-truth-about-the-nordvpn-breach-heres-what-we-now-know

Customers using Web.com, Network Solutions Inc. and Register.com are affected.

Steve Dent, @stevetdent, 10.31.19 in Internet

Attackers have breached Web.com and two top domain name registrars that it owns, NetworkSolutions.com and Register.com, according to Krebs on Security. Web.com issued a security notice advising customers that they will be forced to reset their passwords the next time they log on. Such breaches are particularly worrying, because domain name registrar customers are website owners, and around 8.7 million of them are registered with those companies, according to Krebs.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/31/hackers-breached-some-of-the-webs-most-popular-domain-registrar/

Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday November 02, 2019 @08:34AM from the data-on-domain-names dept.

“Top domain name registrars NetworkSolutions.com, Register.com and Web.com are asking customers to reset their passwords after discovering an intrusion in August 2019 in which customer account information was accessed,” reports security researcher Brian Krebs:

"On October 16, 2019, Web.com determined that a third-party gained unauthorized access to a limited number of its computer systems in late August 2019, and as a result, account information may have been accessed," Web.com said in a written statement. "No credit card data was compromised as a result of this incident." The Jacksonville, Fla.-based Web.com said the information exposed includes "contact details such as name, address, phone numbers, email address and information about the services that we offer to a given account holder...."

Both Network Solutions and Register.com are owned by Web.com. Network Solutions is now the world's fifth-largest domain name registrar, with almost seven million domains in its stable, according to domainstate.com; Register.com listed at #17 with 1.7 million domains.... Web.com said it has reported the incident to law enforcement and hired an outside security firm to investigate further, and is in the process of notifying affected customers through email and via its website....

Web.com wasn't clear how long the intrusion lasted, but if the breach wasn't detected until mid-October that means the intruders potentially had about six weeks inside unnoticed. That's a long time for an adversary to wander about one's network, and plenty of time to steal a great deal more information than just names, addresses and phone numbers.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/11/02/0418229/data-breaches-reported-at-networksolutions-registercom-and-webcom

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/68904/1-2-billion-people-exposed-biggest-data-leak/index.html

01 December, 2019 Angelo Pesce. Twitter: @kenpex.

Is true hacking dead? What we lost.

I don't know how consciously or not, but now that I moved to San Mateo, I found myself listening to many audiobooks about the history of computing, videogames and the Silicon Valley, from the Jobs biography to the “classic” Hackers by Steven Levy, from “Console Wars” to “Bad Blood”.

All of these I've been enjoying, even if some need to be taken with more of a grain of salt than others, and from most I've gained one or two interesting perspectives.

http://c0de517e.blogspot.com/2019/12/is-true-hacking-dead-what-we-lost.html

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/11/breach-affecting-1-million-was-caught-only-after-hacker-maxed-out-targets-storage/

After initial denial, company says report of “malware in system“ is correct.

Sean Gallagher - 10/30/2019, 7:25 AM

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has acknowledged today that malware attributed by others to North Korean state actors had been found on the administrative network of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP). The admission comes a day after the company issued a denial that any attack would affect the plant's control systems.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/indian-nuclear-power-company-confirms-north-korean-malware-attack/

A new study shows you can be easily re-identified from almost any database, even when your personal details have been stripped out.

by Charlotte Jee Jul 23, 2019

The data trail we leave behind us grows all the time. Most of it isn’t that interesting—the takeout meal you ordered, that shower head you bought online—but some of it is deeply personal: your medical diagnoses, your sexual orientation, or your tax records.

The most common way public agencies protect our identities is anonymization. This involves stripping out obviously identifiable things such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, and so on. Data sets are also altered to be less precise, columns in spreadsheets are removed, and “noise” is introduced to the data. Privacy policies reassure us that this means there’s no risk we could be tracked down in the database.

However, a new study in Nature Communications suggests this is far from the case.

Researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Louvain have created a machine-learning model that estimates exactly how easy individuals are to reidentify from an anonymized data set. You can check your own score here, by entering your zip code, gender, and date of birth.

On average, in the US, using those three records, you could be correctly located in an “anonymized” database 81% of the time. Given 15 demographic attributes of someone living in Massachusetts, there’s a 99.98% chance you could find that person in any anonymized database.

“As the information piles up, the chances it isn’t you decrease very quickly,” says Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, a researcher at Imperial College London and one of the study’s authors.

The tool was created by assembling a database of 210 different data sets from five sources, including the US Census. The researchers fed this data into a machine-learning model, which learned which combinations are more nearly unique and which are less so, and then assigns the probability of correct identification.

This isn’t the first study to show how easy it is to track down individuals from anonymized databases. A paper back in 2007 showed that just a few movie ratings on Netflix can identify a person as easily as a Social Security number, for example. However, it shows just how far current anonymization practices have fallen behind our ability to break them. The fact that the data set is incomplete does not protect people’s privacy, says de Montjoye.

It isn’t all bad news. These same reidentification techniques were used by journalists working at the New York Times earlier this year to expose Donald Trump’s tax returns from 1985 to 1994. However, the same method could be used by someone looking to commit ID fraud or obtain information for blackmail purposes.

“The issue is that we think when data has been anonymized it’s safe. Organizations and companies tell us it’s safe, and this proves it is not,” says de Montjoye.

For peace of mind, companies should be using differential privacy, a complex mathematical model that lets organizations share aggregate data about user habits while protecting an individual’s identity, argues Charlie Cabot, research lead at the privacy engineering firm Privitar.

The technique will get its first major test next year: it’s being used to secure the US Census database.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613996/youre-very-easy-to-track-down-even-when-your-data-has-been-anonymized/

Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday November 02, 2019 @10:34AM from the information-on-disinformation dept.

“An unprecedented investigation into disinformation on Facebook has hit turbulence over questions about how much data to release to outside researchers,” reports Fast Company, “curtailing efforts to stem one of social media's most pernicious threats ahead of the 2020 elections.”

Slashdot reader tedlistens writes:

> Social Science One, an unprecedented, Mark Zuckerberg-backed plan to open up Facebook's data to outside researchers -- with the aim of fighting disinformation and propaganda ahead of elections in 2020 -- has run up against privacy concerns at Facebook. A month after the funders' deadline, Facebook continues to work on treating the data with differential privacy techniques and says it hopes to publish more datasets soon. But researchers are frustrated and confused, and the backers are reconsidering their support. And lawmakers like Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are growing impatient too.

> "In Congress, we need to require greater accountability from social media platforms on everything from the transparency of political ad funding, to the legitimacy of content, to the authenticity of user accounts," Warner tells Alex Pasternack at Fast Company. "And if platforms refuse to comply, we need to be able to hold them responsible." 

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/11/02/034225/privacy-concerns-are-jeopardizing-investigations-into-facebook-disinformation

Rob Pegoraro - Special for USA TODAY

Published: 1:17 p.m. ET Nov. 3, 2019 Updated: 1:31 p.m. ET Nov. 3, 2019

Your anxiety over your privacy online can now come with a running score.

An update to Mozilla Firefox shipped last week augments the tracking protection enabled earlier in that web browser by adding a report card that tallies all of the tracking attempts blocked over your last week online.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2019/11/03/heres-how-find-out-whos-tracking-you-online/4114088002/

How to stay safe online and prevent phishing with FIDO2, WebAuthn and security keys.

Every week I come across another headline about how someone got hacked and within moments many of their online accounts had become compromised. These aren't simple cases of bad actors using account credentials from large public data breaches and the unfortunate result of people using the same password across many websites.

https://paulstamatiou.com/getting-started-with-security-keys/

Karl Wakim Nov 01, 2019

Let's Encrypt is an automated and open certificate authority (CA) operated by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) and founded by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Mozilla Foundation, and others. It provides free SSL/TLS certificates which are commonly used to encrypt communications for security and privacy purposes, the most notable use case being HTTPS. Let's Encrypt relies on the ACME (Automatic Certificate Management Environment) protocol to issue, revoke and renew certificates. Certbot is a free and open-source utility mainly used for managing SSL/TLS certificates from the Let's Encrypt certificate authority. It is available for most UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems, including GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and OS X. This guide will provide a platform-agnostic introduction to the usage of certbot.

NOTE: As certbot is a work in progress, some features or behaviors described in this guide might differ in older or future releases.

https://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-manage-lets-encrypt-ssl-tls-certificates-with-certbot/

Karl Wakim Nov 01, 2019

Let's Encrypt is an automated and open certificate authority (CA) operated by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) and founded by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Mozilla Foundation, and others. It provides free SSL/TLS certificates which are commonly used to encrypt communications for security and privacy purposes, the most notable use case being HTTPS. Let's Encrypt relies on the ACME (Automatic Certificate Management Environment) protocol to issue, revoke and renew certificates. Certbot is a free and open-source utility mainly used for managing SSL/TLS certificates from the Let's Encrypt certificate authority. It is available for most UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems, including GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and OS X. This guide will provide a platform-agnostic introduction to the usage of certbot.

https://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-manage-lets-encrypt-ssl-tls-certificates-with-certbot/

VPN Service

https://www.ipvanish.com/pricing.php

By: ArcVRArthur t.me/s/ArcVRArthurBlogDecember 01, 2019

The following article contains quotes and links meant to inform VPN consumers concerning the ownership, affiliations, and past business practices of Kape Technologies (formerly known as Crossrider) in light of their acquisition of Private Internet Access VPN.

I'd like to start by giving credit where it is due. Forbes did some excellent reporting which detailed the business practices of Crossrider (Kape Technologies) prior to the recent news of their acquisition of PIA. Much of that article will be used for context throughout this one. I highly recommend reading it.

https://telegra.ph/Private-Internet-Access-VPN-acquired-by-malware-business-founded-by-former-Israeli-spies-12-01