Compiling Duplicity on CentOS 5.x

Duplicity, an encrypted backup utility that uses the rsync algorithm, is becoming quite useful for my day to day backups. I’ve written several backup scripts using rsync, gzip, and other useful backup schemes. Heck, I’ve even written my own backup subroutines that create a backup structure based of the current date. So, trust me, I usually never change my ways, unless it’s something that really intrigues me. Continue reading Compiling Duplicity on CentOS 5.x

Clearing (but not deleting) log files

Sometimes, as a Systems Administrator, or SysAdmin, there are times we need to clear out the log files, without actually deleting them. As a smart Sys Admin, you normally wouldn’t need to do this, but as I am currently involved in supporting customers and their Linux machines, I run into some pretty neat stuff (neat as in special). I’ve had a few issues where someone actually runs out of disk space on / (root filesystem) due to the /var/log directory being full.

First off, you might run the df command only to realize that, maybe, you have used 97% of the partition up, in this case / (root filesystem). More times than not, this is usually due to your /var/log directory. Make sure though, I’m presuming that you already know that your /var/log directory is full. To find out what is taking up the most space (you should already know why, and thus you are viewing this possibly because you are having issues with a full filesystem), you would need to run the df command. Continue reading Clearing (but not deleting) log files

Stepping Into Samba

A few friends of mine stare at me blankly when I mention Samba and SMB. In fact, sometimes they think it’s the same thing, when in fact, it’s not. I’ll talk about the differences between the two and walk you through setting up Samba networked shares. This will give you a nice introduction to Samba and also Linux, if you are not familiar with that, also.

The real question here isn’t why SMB, or why Samba for that matter? Well, first off, after I explain to you what SMB is and then explain what Samba is, you’ll see that this question I just asked was mildly stupid. The actual question here is “Why create network shares in the first place?”. This is a very basic, honest question, but it tends to turn a few heads. I’ll give you a scenario. You have 5 computers in the house; your laptop, your desktop, the kids have two computers, and your wife has her school laptop. So, your wife has school work and her latest favorite songs on her laptop, the kids have theirs, and you have all your applications and whatnot all on your laptop and desktop. What might seem like not that much data, turns into gigs of data. You have tons of music, school reports and research, ISOs and applications, Development related stuff, pictures from the past four years. You notice you are running out of space on your kid’s computers and you wife’s laptop is running a little sluggish. Now, this is probably highly due to the games and occasional pop ups that are clicked, but hey, why take up space on the systems, when everything can be centralized? Yes, that’s the word – Centralized. Continue reading Stepping Into Samba