Linux tips & tricks -- Search and install Google Web Fonts with Font Finder

Linux tips & tricks -- Search and install Google Web Fonts with Font Finder
https://www.ostechnix.com/font-finder-easily-search-and-install-google-web-fonts-in-linux/

Linux for sysadmins -- Configure Active/Passive NFS Server on a Pacemaker Cluster with Puppet

Linux for sysadmins -- Configure Active/Passive NFS Server on a Pacemaker Cluster with Puppet

If you need to setup a storage server using NFS, here's how you can setup a nice resilient NFS cluster.
https://www.lisenet.com/2018/configure-active-passive-nfs-server-on-a-pacemaker-cluster-with-puppet/

Linux tips & tricks -- A Beginners Guide to Flatpacks

Linux tips & tricks -- A Beginners Guide to Flatpacks

Flatpacks, one of several Linux portable application distribution formats.
https://www.ostechnix.com/flatpak-new-framework-desktop-applications-linux/

Linux from the command line | Linux for sysadmins -- Reigning in the Devil, using Chkservice to manage systemd units

Linux from the command line | Linux for sysadmins -- Reigning in the Devil, using Chkservice to manage systemd units

We're all pretty much stuck with systemd, at least we have tools to control it.
https://www.maketecheasier.com/use-chkservice-manage-systemd-units-linux/

Linux from the command line -- which and whoami

Linux from the command line -- which and whoami


https://www.howtoforge.com/linux-which-whoami-command/

Linux from the command line -- Find your stuff with find

Linux from the command line -- Find your stuff with find

The find command is a classic, core UNIX command that you can use to dig the location of files out of the depths of your system.
What's more find is much more powerful than most of the graphical search tools that come with your system.
https://opensource.com/article/18/4/how-use-find-linux

Linux from the command line -- Using debugfs to track file times

Linux from the command line -- Using debugfs to track file times

Sometimes you need to find out what's going on with certain files. Maybe you want to see if your application is updating it's data files or if the system's tmp files are being written when they should. Whatever the reason, you can get it done with debugfs.
https://www.tecmint.com/debugfs-command-show-file-creation-time-in-linux/#

Linux from the command line | Linux tips & tricks -- "What is this box anyway?"

Linux from the command line | Linux tips & tricks -- "What is this box anyway?"

It may seem silly to want to find out about the brand and model of computer you're using when you're looking at it. But sometimes it's handy info. For example, if you're working on a friend or family member's computer and you need to lookup that model's reference info on the manufacturer's website. It's also really handy for sysadmins doing remote maintenance when you can't just look at the computer.

So here you go. Several ways to find out what you're computer's details are.
https://www.2daygeek.com/how-to-check-system-hardware-manufacturer-model-and-serial-number-in-linux/

Linux for sysadmins -- Randomizing DNS

Linux for sysadmins -- Randomizing DNS

I've been saying for a while now that DNS would, at some point, become an attack vector for both censorship and police state surveillance. Fortunately, there's people working on this and here's one solution. This system will distribute DNS requests randomly among a list of TLS encrypted DNS servers.
This is a pretty good idea and a good solution and I hope to see more down the road.
https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/kresd-random-dns-forwarding

Linux tips & tricks -- Installing Adobe Creative Cloud Apps in Linux

Linux tips & tricks -- Installing Adobe Creative Cloud Apps in Linux

OK, big caveat here. PlayOnLinux currently has a huge bug with regards to HiDPI screens that makes it almost unusable. So, if you have a 4k screen, be forewarned not to count on this solution if you need Adobe CS on Linux.

This bug has been reported, and I've been tracking it for almost a year, but the PoL devs have done nothing about it.
https://www.maketecheasier.com/install-adobe-creative-cloud-linux/

Linux tips & tricks -- Sharing files between Windows and Linux

Linux tips & tricks -- Sharing files between Windows and Linux

This article gives two ways, there are quite a few others. Share your's in the comments.
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3269189/linux/sharing-files-between-linux-and-windows.html

Linux from the command line -- Introducing the GNU Core utils

Linux from the command line -- Introducing the GNU Core utils

These are the core command line tools that are part of every GNU/Linux distribution.
https://opensource.com/article/18/4/gnu-core-utilities

Linux from the command line -- Using seq to iterate over sequences in bash

Linux from the command line -- Using seq to iterate over sequences in bash
https://linuxhint.com/bash_range/

Linux tips & tricks -- Backup and restore Linux system settings with Mackup

Linux tips & tricks -- Backup and restore Linux system settings with Mackup

Backup your Linux system settings to your Dropbox the easy way.
https://www.ostechnix.com/backup-and-restore-application-settings-on-newly-installed-linux-system/

Linux for sysadmins -- OSWatcher Black Box for system monitoring

Linux for sysadmins -- OSWatcher Black Box for system monitoring

https://www.2daygeek.com/oswbb-how-to-install-and-configure-oswatcher-black-box-for-system-diagnostics/

Linux from the command line | Linux tips & tricks -- Math on the command line

Linux from the command line | Linux tips & tricks -- Math on the command line

Thanks to it's UNIX roots, Linux is very good at math and provides multiple ways to do various kinds of math, both simple and complex, from the command line. This of course means you can also do it from a script.


https://www.networkworld.com/article/3268964/linux/how-to-do-math-on-the-linux-command-line.html

Linux for sysadmins -- Configuring network interface bonding in Ubuntu Linux

Linux for sysadmins -- Configuring network interface bonding in Ubuntu Linux

Bonding is a great, standards supported method of increasing network bandwidth or reliability by logically combining multiple network interfaces into one logical interface.
Bonding is the standards referenced name, but Microsoft being Microsoft for some damned reason calls it "Teaming". Please don't promote that improper terminology nonsense. It's Bonding.
Note that to use Bonded Ethernet interfaces, you must have a network switch that also supports Bonding.

Notes:
For RH like systems, see https://www.tecmint.com/configure-network-bonding-or-teaming-in-rhel-centos-7/
For OpenSUSE users of course, you should use YaST2 to create and set up bonded devices.
https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/reference/html/book.opensuse.reference/cha.basicnet.html#sec.bond


https://www.tecmint.com/configure-network-bonding-teaming-in-ubuntu/

Linux from the command line | Linux for sysadmins -- Mastering the shutdown command

Linux from the command line | Linux for sysadmins -- Mastering the shutdown command

Many PC Desktop Linux home users may never have come across the shutdown command, but it's handy to know and learn for a lot of reasons. For sysadmins, it's an essential tool for remote management.

For home users, imagine you're downloading a large file that's going to take an hour but you have to leave for work. You want to finish your download, but you don't want to leave your computer running all day. Shutdown is your tool.

Let's try it. OK, so your download says it's going to take an hour, let's be safe and wait 90 minutes before shutting off the computer, in case the download slows down a bit.
Open a shell, become root with su, and type the following

shutdown -P +90

That's it. Leave the shell open and go to work. In 90 minutes your computer will shutdown and power off cleanly unattended.
https://www.howtoforge.com/linux-shutdown-command/

Linux from the command line | Linux for sysadmins -- formatting bash output with tpuf, printf, and shell expansions

Linux from the command line | Linux for sysadmins -- formatting bash output with tpuf, printf, and shell expansions
https://linuxhint.com/tput-printf-and-shell-expansions-how-to-create-awesome-outputs-with-bash-scripts/

Linux Mint - Important Tools for new users

Linux Mint - Important Tools for new users
https://itsfoss.com/linux-mint-basic-settings/

Linux from the command line -- Check file system status with stat

Linux from the command line -- Check file system status with stat
https://www.tecmint.com/linux-stat-command-examples/#

Linux from the command line -- Mixing it up with the shuf command

Linux from the command line -- Mixing it up with the shuf command

The bash shell is very powerful and the plethora of commands it provides can be combined into scripts as powerful as full on applications. The shuf command is an example of a tool you might use to build such a powerful script.

Make sure to check out the "sort" command too, it's the ying to shuf's yang.
They will also both teach you why you should use leading zero's instead of the way it's done in the shuf demo. For example, where the demo uses
line1
line2
.
.
.
line10

You should use

line01
line02
.
.
.
line10

Play with shuf and sort to see why.
https://www.ostechnix.com/the-shuf-command-tutorial-with-examples-for-beginners/

Linux tips & tricks -- 14 tools to backup your Linux box

Linux tips & tricks -- 14 tools to backup your Linux box

If there's one piece of advice you'll hear on every computing advice list, it's backup your computer!
Luckily for Linux users, it's UNIX heritage brings with it a sysadmin's mindset of backup soon and often. This in turn has lead to the availability of a lot of great tools and options for backing up. Even better many of these tools can backup more than just your one Linux box, many can backup the other computers on your network as well, be they Linux, Windows, or Mac.
So check out the list, pick a tool, and get backing up.

Pro Tip:
For a lot of smaller customers and home business users, I take an old, low power PC (eg a Small Form Factor) or even laptop, throw a USB 3.0 card in it, and grab two of the same Terabyte or larger external USB 3.0 drives from whoever has them on sale this week. Then set them up to automount by UUID, configure them as RAID 1 (Mirrored), and install Amanda on the system to let it operate as a backup server for critical files. IE "My Documents" on Windows systems, and "/home/*" on Linux systems.
Be sure to setup SMARTD on the server box to check the drives regularly and to e-mail you if it finds any issues.
If you use an old PC/Laptop you already have, and Hard Drives on a good sale, you can setup a pretty decent backup server for under $200. Money well spent.
In fact these days, the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ could even serve in this role reasonably well, as long as you run your backups at night and use compression on the client side to minimize bandwidth, USB utilization.
Whatever hardware you use, plug it all into a small APC UPS and setup the comm cable so the system can auto-shutdown in the event of a power failure.
https://www.tecmint.com/linux-system-backup-tools/

Linux from the command line -- Command line history with fc

Linux from the command line -- Command line history with fc

We've talked about some of the bash shell command line history tools before, but there's always something new to learn.
https://www.ostechnix.com/the-fc-command-tutorial-with-examples-for-beginners/

Linux from the command line -- Going overboard demonstrating the many ways there are to do things on Linux by...

Linux from the command line -- Going overboard demonstrating the many ways there are to do things on Linux by checking your memory


https://www.2daygeek.com/easy-ways-to-check-size-of-physical-memory-ram-in-linux/

Linux for sysadmins -- Installing Rancher Docker manager on Debian

Linux for sysadmins -- Installing Rancher Docker manager on Debian
https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/debian-rancher-docker-container-manager/

Linux from the command line | Linux for sysadmins -- Reading compressed text files

Linux from the command line | Linux for sysadmins -- Reading compressed text files

While this is a convenient tool for people that save space by compressing their ordinary text files, it's a really handy tool for system administrators that want to view old log files...assuming you have your system setup to still store them this way and haven't given in to systemd's log storage nonsense.
https://bash-prompt.net/guides/read-write-gzip/

Learning Linux -- An overview of the ext file-system family

Learning Linux -- An overview of the ext file-system family

ext and it's descendants have been the default file-system in Linux for a very long time. Here's what they are and what the difference are as well as a brief overview of a few file-system alternative options.
https://opensource.com/article/18/4/ext4-filesystem

Linux tips & tricks | Linux for sysadmins -- IPFire, a user friendly Linux firewall

Linux tips & tricks | Linux for sysadmins -- IPFire, a user friendly Linux firewall

For advanced home LAN users, small businesses, and charity organizations a great way to build an inexpensive but powerful firewall is to throw two network cards in an old PC and installing Linux.
If you don't have advanced Linux firewall/networking skills yet, there are a few ways to make it work. Pfsense is one way. This looks like another one.
I've never used it myself, but I thought it was worth sharing.
One thing I find interesting about it is that it's a purpose built, from scratch system. Not a general purpose distro like Fedora or Ubuntu hacked up and modified for firewall duty. It also seems to have a pretty decent administration system and firewall management interface.
https://www.linux.com/learn/intro-to-linux/2018/4/ipfire-user-friendly-linux-firewall-distribution

Linux for sysadmins -- Managing virtual machines with Vagrant

Linux for sysadmins -- Managing virtual machines with Vagrant

This is a system to help manage virtual machines and it looks like it might be helpful for some regular VM users. However, be sure to read the docs for your Linux distribution because some, especially ones that are for Enterprise use come with built in or integrated tools to perform these functions.
https://www.chris-shaw.com/blog/how-to-install-and-setup-vagrant#2018

Linux from the command line -- 10 fundamental commands for new Linux users

Linux from the command line -- 10 fundamental commands for new Linux users

This is Linux 101. Worth saving for reference to send to your new Linux convert friends when they ask you how to get started.
https://opensource.com/article/18/4/10-commands-new-linux-users