ADMIN #07 - Digital Issue

Check out two hypervisors, two ways to use the shell in a browser, a firewall distro, and Fedora 16. 

vSphere vs. XenServer – VMware and Citrix battle it out in the virtual server market.

Shell in a Browser – When HTTP(S) is all you have, you can still access the shell.

pfSense – This specialty distro based on FreeBSD gives you a firewall, a router, and much more in just 100MB.

Fedora 16 – The latest Fedora puts the emphasis on virtualization and the cloud.

News: Find out about the latest ploys and toys in the world of information technology.

Admin News – Sandia Labs develops DNSViz to help spot DNS vulnerabilities, the US government releases cloud security guidelines, and Check Point announces new security gateways for the cloud.

New Products – NVidia gets Best in Show, Lenovo showcases new IdeaPads, and Iomega shows off terabyte network storage.

Tools: Save time and simplify your workday with these useful tools for real-world systems administration.

tcpdump – This packet-sniffing security tool will keep your network safe from intruders.

Zabbix – The strength of the Zabbix monitoring tool lies with items, triggers, and actions.

Upstart – Abandon runlevels and embrace jobs and events with this System V init replacement for Ubuntu-based systems.

Tablet Sys Admin – Mobile tablet computers make handy management tools for busy sys admins.

Virtualization: Virtual environments are becoming faster, more secure, and easier to set up and use. Check out these tools.

Monitoring with Opsview – Opsview teams up with Pacemaker, Heartbeat, and DRBD.

Virsch – Virsch doesn’t just query and control VMs, it can be scripted, too.

Management: Use these practical apps to extend, simplify, and automate routine admin tasks.

Nagios Benchmarks – We submit Nagios to performance testing and check out some alternatives.

Writing Your Own OCF Agent – Manage your cluster with a custom resource agent.

GFS – Create a low-budget redundant service with GFS2, DRBD, and Pacemaker.

Nuts and Bolts: Timely tutorials on fundamental techniques for system administrators.

Performance Tuning Dojo – Use RAM to your advantage to reduce latency and even out response time.

Monitoring Comparison – We look at OpenNMS, Zabbix, Icinga, and Nagios monitoring solutions.

Qemu and the Kernel – Debug Linux on the run with the Qemu emulator.

LVM Basics – The Logical Volume Manager lets you resize physical volumes on the fly.

Admin Story: Mounting an iPad – Modify standard Linux packages to mount iPads with the latest iOS patch.