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In distributed networks, one of the most important tasks is to maintain the user and group information. For centralized management, many customers use Network Information Service (NIS). This article provides an overview of NIS and the steps to install and configure NIS as a server and client.

At one point in time and not too very long ago, I fancied myself a decent system administrator with a decent resume and work history. When I finished a series of writing tasks working on technology subjects that included system administration, I thought the time had come for me to work in a shop with Linux and MS. I put my resume up on Dice and Monster and waited for the phone to ring. When it didn't ring, I went up to see the hits. I saw six on Monster and eight on Dice. Only one company saved my data.

IPCop is a specialized Linux distribution whose sole purpose is to safeguard the computers and networks it is installed on. The distro proudly claims, "The Bad Packets Stop Here!" I recently installed IPCop 1.4.16 on my SOHO LAN, and found that it accomplishes what it sets out to do. My LAN is constantly in a state of flux, but at a minimum it contains at least two computers and a wireless access point. I use the wireless router both for Internet access from my laptop and to provide access to a Hewlett-Packard network printer that's located in a spot where a cable would be inconvenient. I add and remove the odd computer from the mix on an ongoing basis.

SoX is a power-packed command-line tool for various types of audio processing. It's very useful as an audio format converter, and it can be used for resampling audio files, converting between endianness, audio encoding and modifying other attributes of common audio file formats. Its main power, however, is its effect plugins. It can apply various effects to audio in the same way a digital audio workstation does. You can add echoes, filter frequencies, reduce or increase volume, remove noise and do various other advanced digital signal processing on sound samples.

A recent conference on open source in education at Seneca College generated interesting thoughts, published in Frank Hecker’s blog. (Hecker works for Mozilla.) This piece isn’t really about technology, but about how open source practices impact career and educational opportunities. A good read for big thinkers.

In the wake of recent flareups over the inclusion of BSD licensed code in GPL licensed programs, a little extra vigilance can go a long way. Recently, Fedora package managers manually reviewing code licenses in a new version of Joop Stakenborg’s popular XLog program — used by amateur radio enthusiasts around the globe to record their contacts — discovered a change in the licensing of one of the included files which impacted the licensing of the program as a whole.

Zonbu has started shipping a laptop version of its Linux-based computing appliance for home users. The Zonbu Notebook or "Zonbook 1" is based on a power-efficient Via processor, runs Gentoo Linux and 20 open source applications, and sells for $280 with a managed service plan.

Even if you work only in Linux, you'll likely have to use Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files at one time or another. Several open source projects use this common format, including Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Python, and PHP. Microsoft developed CHM as a proprietary format for Windows 98, leaving behind the previous WinHelp (HLP) format. CHM is still alive and kicking in XP and Vista, though some applications use the newer Microsoft Help 2 format.

In PolishLinux.org Command Line Tricks series they have described Getting help and Processes management. Now it’s time to understand how the file permissions in Linux work. The article covers topics such as the basics of Linux file access rights, useful commands that allow you to manage file permissions, as well as numerical and special access modes.

Creating a high-quality chart for the Web can be a challenging task, but open source software like Open Flash Chart (OFC) makes it a cinch. As you might guess from its name, the core engine of OFC is written in Adobe Flash. Although this means that users need a Flash browser plugin to view charts created with OFC, this approach has a significant advantage: it allows you to produce professional-quality graphs with minimum effort, because the core engine does all the heavy lifting, and all you need to do is to specify configuration options for your chart and feed data into it.

If you're a technology consultant who serves small businesses, you can drive your profits higher by combining open source desktops with managed services. It's the perfect business model: You promote Ubuntu Linux PCs running OpenOffice and you manage those systems remotely for a monthly fee. That's right: You can actually bill customers on a monthly basis to support hardware that barely needs any support. Here's how it works.

Ready to face your mother-in-law's corrupt NTFS file system this season?

Issue #7 of Full Circle, the community-driven Ubuntu Linux magazine, is out with features on Ubuntu Studio, Wabi the Windows Ubuntu installer, and the best audio and video apps.

Slackware Linux today features a powerful and easy-to-use package management system, but making Slackware packages has not always been straightforward. Now Slackware application developers have a tool for easily making Slackware packages from source code and precompiled binaries. Src2pkg, now in version 1.6, very nearly lives up to its author's tag of being Slackware's "magic package maker."

Free-wheeling Linux was an improbable enough operating system to be used on IBM's mainframe line, but now an even more unlikely operating system is making an appearance there: Sun Microsystems' Solaris. Sun and IBM have been arch-enemies for decades, but through the combination of open-source flexibility and something of a detente between the companies, the operating system has arrived.

Bitter adversaries IBM and Sun Microsystems have been adding a little sugar to their parley. Their corporate fisticuffs have even recently given way to hand-holding. In August, the two companies revealed that IBM will offer Solaris x86 as an option to some Xeon- and Opteron-based servers. IBM's systems chief Bill Zeitler also hinted at seeing Solaris on the System Z mainframes.

Although Perl-based Web interfaces have limitations, Perl is one of the most commonly used Web development languages. UNIX users who have a programming background in shell scripting, Perl, or another language can breathe new life into Perl-based Web interfaces by using the Perl/Tk module. In this second article of the series, learn about intermediate widgets, including radiobutton, checkbutton, menu, menubutton, and scrollbar.

It was just a week ago that the RadeonHD v0.0.4 driver was released, but today it has been replaced by v1.0! RadeonHD 1.0.0 was just pushed out to the public, and while it's still lacking 3D support and isn't bug-free, it's matured quite a bit over the past two and a half months that it's been available to the public.

I opened the morning paper and turned to the front page of Business - Section D. Right in the middle of front page at the top, four columns wide and headlined with major graphics a story line asked "Mind if we share?" The lower headline read, "BitTorrent pours out movies, TV shows - and controversy".

Create a rapid development process using open source tools for grid applications. For optimal results take advantage of scripting languages like Perl or Python and deployment environments like Apache. For more rapid development possibilities try this Project Zero and PHP tutorial and build a simple web application.