Server Tutorials

Etckeeper makes it easy to keep your /etc directory and its related config files in a revision control system of your choice.

Assistants are no longer just for execs. With a virtual assistant, you can hand off repetitive tasks and focus on the work that matters. Fancy Hands and Amazon's Mechanical Turk are two examples of affordable assistants, each effective at meeting a different set of needs.

If you're looking to script backups or other operations, a reliable CLI tool that works with S3 is a must. s3cmd fits the bill.

Prototyping Web applications? Trying to test and tune your Web servers? httperf makes it easy to test HTTP server workloads.

The latest GNU fdisk is now in alpha. Not anywhere ready for production, but ready for the adventurous to take out for a spin.

Learn tips for keeping your Linux system safe in this post-kernel.org-breach world.

Completing filenames when using Vim in command mode can be tricky. These tips will make it a simpler task.

Linux admins looking for an easy way to set hard and soft limits for users will find much to like about the pam_limits module. With pam_limits, you can set parameters on system resources on a per-user (or per-group) basis for all variables--from the maximum number of files a user can have open to the amount of CPU time.

Linux and other Unix-type systems contain a wealth of features under the surface. Oftentimes, however, these features are non-obvious and hard to find. Compgen, a GNU Bash builtin that shows all possible completions, is one such feature.

Is your hardware inadequate for your site? Throwing more resources at it may not be the best answer. For WordPress sites, W3 Total Cache is an inexpensive way to wring the most out of what you already have.

Most admins know kill and pkill. But those looking for a quick, clean kill use slay.

If security is a primary concern for you, and it should be, introduce yourself to 10 secure Linux distributions ready to work in any environment from small to enterprise to cloud.