Install CactiEZ on Windows 2008 Hyper-V

CactiEZ (Cacti Made Easy) is a self installing Linux Distribution based off CentOS that sets up and configures a customized Cacti install. Everything is designed to be completely automated and working directly out of the box. This compact distro is loaded with extra features such as Syslog and Netflow data collection, Weathermaps, Reports, Auto Discovery, […]

Upgrade Ubuntu Server From 8.10 to 9.10 – How To

You can use the following steps to easily upgrade Ubuntu Linux server (or workstation) 8.x to 9.10 (latest version as of this posting), either locally or remotely over ssh from a terminal command line. Note: Backup important data and configuration files first. First, apply latest updates to Ubuntu 8.x using: sudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get upgrade […]

Installing EC2 Command Line Tools on Windows

UPDATE (12-2016): See HowTo: Install AWS CLI on Both Windows and Linux for updated information on installing, configuring and using the AWS CLI unified tools. NOTE: This tutorial contains information for both AMI and API command line tools along with ELB tools. Most users will need the API tools, some the ELB tools, and not many […]

Alternatives to HyperTerminal in Windows 7 and Vista

Beginning with Windows Vista Microsoft removed HyperTerminal (aka HyperTerm & Hyper Terminal).  Of course, this means it isn’t in Windows 7 either. There are several options you can use to replace its functionality. PuTTY – My Recommendation PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm […]

Automatically Logout SSH Users after a period of inactivity

You can improve your server security by enforcing SSH timeout so users will be automatically log out after a period of inactivity.  Administrators can easily enforce the timeout on SSH clients by simply changing ClientAliveInterval value and restaring the sshd daemon for the changes to take place. 1) Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config2) Set ClientAliveInterval to 5 minutes […]

Trinity Rescue Kit | CPR for your computer

Trinity Rescue Kit or TRK is a free live Linux distribution that aims specifically at recovery and repair operations on Windows machines, but is equally usable for Linux recovery issues.  TRK is a complete command line based distribution, apart from a few tools like qtparted, links, partition image and midnight commander. Some of Trinity Rescur […]

How to create and use Public Keys with SSH

SSH and SFTP Public Key Authentication requires that you create a public/private key pair. In this howto we will look at how to create then use those keys. SSH (Secure Shell) and SFTP (Secure FTP) support a very strong security model that can be used instead of the normal username and password authentication scheme. It […]