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I've read the whole article. My! You'd better be a geek to have to cope with all the little worries..

Getting cheap AND working hardware on E-Bay. My mom will not do it for the sake of her computer.

32GB limitation by jumpers. Not obvious for an end-user.

Booting up *nixes from various drives in order to access the limited drive, then fiddle with partitions. I still don't dare touching my configs for more than OS at a time. Let alone various OSes on various drives.

Compiling KDart?! Compiling what? What do I have to do? "Comp..??" You have to admit, it's not for the dummy kind.

Definitely not "Backup made easy" but "Made not so expensive" since the price tag still reaches 300$ (drive + box from e-bay + screws + shots of valium to calm you down when your machine refuses to boot after all the offence you just did to it).

I bought Linux Hacks. This, Webmin and a remote machine accessible using Samba or sftp does the daily backup just fine.

My servers do have gui interfaces... Webmin and SWAT...

Hows about you try something like Webmin great way to manage most aspects of your system.

What this is describing is a proxy process (it very specifically says process) running as root/admin which accepts RPCs (remote procedure calls) for privileged operations, and then makes the call as root, on behalf of the user.

So it is webmin, then?

Even though different distros may have different internal solutions to configuration, I see no good reason why a consistent front end can't (or shouldn't) be provided.

That's very true. In fact, Webmin already achieves that for a lot of stuff - it can auto-detect which OS or distribution it's installed on. It should be very easy for the Gnome team to do the same.

Here's one:

www.turtlefirewall.com . Works well with webmin.

Webmin. Grab Usermin while you're there.

Webmin. Grab Usermin while you're there.

"His basic thrust was that everyone is moving from proprietary Unix with its expensive platforms to Windows or Linux on x86 platforms and that it this hardware move, rather than linux versus windows, that will drive all the cost savings."

Linux has been more widely ported than an other OS in history. It is certainly more portable than Windows. When the next, cheaper hardware platform comes around, I expect that by the time it is a commodity, Linux will already be running on it. Furthermore, the cost-effectiveness of particular hardware depends on what you are running on it. Windows doesn't scale up on high-end server hardware. Linux does. With Linux, you have a choice.

Furthermore, the switch from proprietary Unix to Linux is a porting effort that is not particularly difficult. It is certainly easier than making the transition from Unix to Windows. And once you port to Windows, Microsoft has made it very easy to suffer vendor lock-in.

Linux is not free.

This has been a standard Microsoft argument for several years. If they failed to articulate that downloading Debian is not free because of the time and effort involved, then it is their fault for not making that argument clear in their presentation. It is worth noting that there are several costs associated with Windows that have no counterpart with a free Debian download. No licensing costs. The Debian project has never sent the BSA to do an expensive audit of any of its customers. If you reconfigure your hardware with Debian, there are no hassles with reactivating the license. No effort is required to keep employees from taking a copy home. Linux doesn't have a history of viruses and worms. If Microsoft changes the licensing terms of Windows or MS Office, you're stuck. Debian can't change the terms of the GPL. You are always free to use the old terms with the old version and the recent X Windows saga is proof that open source software resists licensing changes very effectively.

"Management tools on Linux are nearly as good as a DOS prompt"

First, every major distro, including the free ones come with some GUI management tools. Second, there is always Webmin. Third, the Linux shells are scriptable in ways that the DOS prompt was never able to match. Finally, remote administration of a Linux box can be done very easily. You don't need a GUI. Headless Linux boxes have been around from the start. GUI administration is not cost-effective when you are trying to administer as many boxes as possible.

"Linux is moving to the same model that Microsoft has been using"

The GPL won't permit Linux distros to own the code. No matter how many people Microsoft shares their code with, to them sharing means that you can look at it. You can't touch it, play with it, change it, or share it with others. Additionally, Linux and open source have resisted restrictive license changes a couple of times recently. As I said earlier, X Windows is an excellent example of this. If Microsoft wants to make this claim, they have to explain what they mean because several obvious interpretations are clearly not true.

My absolute favourite part of the talk was when Barley started to extol the virtues of Windows because everything in it was made by one manufacturer.

Microsoft will stick to this claim as long as it is absolutely convenient. They are quick to blame others when there are buggy third-party device drivers. And as soon as there is an anti-trust suit, they are even quicker to claim they are open to competition.

He made mention of the Forrester report that claimed more vulnerabilities in Linux than Windows.

Name one exploit that had a widespread effect on Linux boxes. Now, name three that hit Windows in the past month. You can't install and patch a Windows XP system without either a firewall or cleaning up the malware that infects it between the time you connect to the net

someone needs to start a project site to add GUI's for every single configurable thing that happens in linux.

There is. Its called webmin If you have ever used AIX, you know how every admin task runs under smit. Webmin is an attempt to do the same thing on Linux, but only with web access. (smit provides dumb terminal, PDA and GUI modes as well).

Every program needs a webmin module.

I know most of you prefer nothing more than foaming at the mouth, and checking facts isn't needed, but here are some:

www.webmin.com/partners.html

Thanks to the following companies and individuals for their support of Webmin over the years :

• Caldera Systems, for being the first sponsor of Webmin and paying me to work on it full-time for for over a year. Caldera was also the first distribution vendor to include Webmin as their standard administration tool, and developed the Caldera theme.

www.webmin.com/theage.html

Jamie Cameron sits in his Mount Waverley home coding system administration tools, 14,000 kilometres from his boss in Utah, US. Cameron, 27, parlayed a free open source project into a lucrative career working for the No.2 Linux distribution company, Caldera.

www.webmin.com/intro.html

What licence is Webmin distributed under? All recent versions of Webmin are under a BSD-like licence, meaning that it may be freely distributed and modified for commercial and non-commercial use. Early versions were distributed as betas of what would eventually become a commercial product, but following Caldera's sponsorship of the project in 2000 all subsequent releases have been BSD licenced. Even though Caldera is no longer supporting the development of Webmin, all future releases will remain under a free licence.

www.webmin.com/trans.html

Caldera's translation team contributed to the German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean translations.

So are you sure the book didn't copy the Webmin online doc, that Caldera made a significant contribution to. Who needs facts?

I know most of you prefer nothing more than foaming at the mouth, and checking facts isn't needed, but here are some:

www.webmin.com/partners.html

Thanks to the following companies and individuals for their support of Webmin over the years :

• Caldera Systems, for being the first sponsor of Webmin and paying me to work on it full-time for for over a year. Caldera was also the first distribution vendor to include Webmin as their standard administration tool, and developed the Caldera theme.

www.webmin.com/theage.html

Jamie Cameron sits in his Mount Waverley home coding system administration tools, 14,000 kilometres from his boss in Utah, US. Cameron, 27, parlayed a free open source project into a lucrative career working for the No.2 Linux distribution company, Caldera.

www.webmin.com/intro.html

What licence is Webmin distributed under? All recent versions of Webmin are under a BSD-like licence, meaning that it may be freely distributed and modified for commercial and non-commercial use. Early versions were distributed as betas of what would eventually become a commercial product, but following Caldera's sponsorship of the project in 2000 all subsequent releases have been BSD licenced. Even though Caldera is no longer supporting the development of Webmin, all future releases will remain under a free licence.

www.webmin.com/trans.html

Caldera's translation team contributed to the German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean translations.

So are you sure the book didn't copy the Webmin online doc, that Caldera made a significant contribution to. Who needs facts?

I know most of you prefer nothing more than foaming at the mouth, and checking facts isn't needed, but here are some:

www.webmin.com/partners.html

Thanks to the following companies and individuals for their support of Webmin over the years :

• Caldera Systems, for being the first sponsor of Webmin and paying me to work on it full-time for for over a year. Caldera was also the first distribution vendor to include Webmin as their standard administration tool, and developed the Caldera theme.

www.webmin.com/theage.html

Jamie Cameron sits in his Mount Waverley home coding system administration tools, 14,000 kilometres from his boss in Utah, US. Cameron, 27, parlayed a free open source project into a lucrative career working for the No.2 Linux distribution company, Caldera.

www.webmin.com/intro.html

What licence is Webmin distributed under? All recent versions of Webmin are under a BSD-like licence, meaning that it may be freely distributed and modified for commercial and non-commercial use. Early versions were distributed as betas of what would eventually become a commercial product, but following Caldera's sponsorship of the project in 2000 all subsequent releases have been BSD licenced. Even though Caldera is no longer supporting the development of Webmin, all future releases will remain under a free licence.

www.webmin.com/trans.html

Caldera's translation team contributed to the German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean translations.

So are you sure the book didn't copy the Webmin online doc, that Caldera made a significant contribution to. Who needs facts?

I know most of you prefer nothing more than foaming at the mouth, and checking facts isn't needed, but here are some:

www.webmin.com/partners.html

Thanks to the following companies and individuals for their support of Webmin over the years :

• Caldera Systems, for being the first sponsor of Webmin and paying me to work on it full-time for for over a year. Caldera was also the first distribution vendor to include Webmin as their standard administration tool, and developed the Caldera theme.

www.webmin.com/theage.html

Jamie Cameron sits in his Mount Waverley home coding system administration tools, 14,000 kilometres from his boss in Utah, US. Cameron, 27, parlayed a free open source project into a lucrative career working for the No.2 Linux distribution company, Caldera.

www.webmin.com/intro.html

What licence is Webmin distributed under? All recent versions of Webmin are under a BSD-like licence, meaning that it may be freely distributed and modified for commercial and non-commercial use. Early versions were distributed as betas of what would eventually become a commercial product, but following Caldera's sponsorship of the project in 2000 all subsequent releases have been BSD licenced. Even though Caldera is no longer supporting the development of Webmin, all future releases will remain under a free licence.

www.webmin.com/trans.html

Caldera's translation team contributed to the German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean translations.

So are you sure the book didn't copy the Webmin online doc, that Caldera made a significant contribution to. Who needs facts?

Having to remember the names and locations of dozens of config files in order to perform basic upkeep and maintenance of your server is not.

Hi. My name is Webmin. Have we met?

Maybe you can engrave it like somone suggested they could do with the Va. Tech G5's and get mo money.

How about "Originally owned by a dope who blamed Apple because he didn't know dick about Macs"?

Why would anyone use Webmin when VNC, Timbuktu and Apple Remote Desktop are available, AND known to work? Also, Apple's server admin tools can be run on any Mac and used to administer any remote OS X Server that you can reach via TCP/IP.

But if someone INSISTS on running Webmin, how about using Google to find detailed instructions on getting it to work?

It's a poor carpenter who blames his tools.

You may want to check out webmin, it has a useful GUI interface for Apache and everything else on your system.

I know at least one of their servers (RAQ XTR) is x86 based. Besides, most of the frontend code appears to be scripting code or otherwise cpu-independent, so a recompile should solve that problem. Hopefully this will result in code for generic Linux/BSD machines.

A big wish of mine is for the Cobalt web/mail admin code to find its way as a plugin for the very excellent Webmin project. Webmin has a web frontend like Cobalt which covers lots of other functionality, but generally it tends to be thin wrapper around the config files. The cobalt GUI abstracts things quite a bit more for new users and for basic tasks, and Webmin would benefit from this.

I am not sure if you have checked out Webmin before, but it is a great control panel and can be made to have more granular and domain specific controls for users. With a tiny bit of effort in setting up each user as opposed to the RAQ interface, Webmin is a great solution. Personally there were so many little things that irritated me with the RAQ interface that the nice features could not make up for...but this is only opinion.

I haven't looked at Webmin in a few years, but this dosen't look like much more than a spcialized / dumbed down Webmin.

I'm not sure of the Raq attraction anymore. I've never owned one. But from what I read they are cheap, but underpowered.

Nowadays you can get cheap _and_ powerful dedicated servers. Linux to boot.

Control panel wise, if you want to go the Open Source route, slap something like Webmin on them with VirtualMin if you are planning on reselling the space and will have third party users needing a control panel.

Otherwise the most popular web hosting control panels are the likes of Ensim, Plesk and cPanel/WHM

If you're just after affordable dedicated server type functionality (e.g. for compiling software, running custom versions of Apache or MySQL or what have you), then you may be pleasantly surprised with what is available with Linux VPS Hosting (my own service). With the VPS you have no hardware worries. And typically the host servers are very powerful and you'll get better performance than a dedicated server a few times the price.

I'm not sure of the Raq attraction anymore. I've never owned one. But from what I read they are cheap, but underpowered.

Nowadays you can get cheap _and_ powerful dedicated servers. Linux to boot.

Control panel wise, if you want to go the Open Source route, slap something like Webmin on them with VirtualMin if you are planning on reselling the space and will have third party users needing a control panel.

Otherwise the most popular web hosting control panels are the likes of Ensim, Plesk and cPanel/WHM

If you're just after affordable dedicated server type functionality (e.g. for compiling software, running custom versions of Apache or MySQL or what have you), then you may be pleasantly surprised with what is available with Linux VPS Hosting (my own service). With the VPS you have no hardware worries. And typically the host servers are very powerful and you'll get better performance than a dedicated server a few times the price.

I currently use both webmin, and a cobalt cube (on different servers).

Webmin is really good for the system admin stuff, and setting up new users etc... It also has good support for just about any version of linux, and application (ftp, apache, sendmail, qmail, etc...). I would not recommend using it for end user configuration as it grants a little to much power, and is geared towards the knowledgeable. It is however reliable and secure.

For the end user, there is an addon to webmin called Usermin and another titled Virtualmin. The first is geared towards the end user that needs to read email and such (although it is a poor webmail interface for the end user), and the second is geared towards your setting of end users creating and setting up email accts etc.

hopefully that helps... as it is what i will probably switch to when my cobalt cube dies.

I currently use both webmin, and a cobalt cube (on different servers).

Webmin is really good for the system admin stuff, and setting up new users etc... It also has good support for just about any version of linux, and application (ftp, apache, sendmail, qmail, etc...). I would not recommend using it for end user configuration as it grants a little to much power, and is geared towards the knowledgeable. It is however reliable and secure.

For the end user, there is an addon to webmin called Usermin and another titled Virtualmin. The first is geared towards the end user that needs to read email and such (although it is a poor webmail interface for the end user), and the second is geared towards your setting of end users creating and setting up email accts etc.

hopefully that helps... as it is what i will probably switch to when my cobalt cube dies.

I currently use both webmin, and a cobalt cube (on different servers).

Webmin is really good for the system admin stuff, and setting up new users etc... It also has good support for just about any version of linux, and application (ftp, apache, sendmail, qmail, etc...). I would not recommend using it for end user configuration as it grants a little to much power, and is geared towards the knowledgeable. It is however reliable and secure.

For the end user, there is an addon to webmin called Usermin and another titled Virtualmin. The first is geared towards the end user that needs to read email and such (although it is a poor webmail interface for the end user), and the second is geared towards your setting of end users creating and setting up email accts etc.

hopefully that helps... as it is what i will probably switch to when my cobalt cube dies.

You could use Debian, Redhat, Mandrake, whatever. You could even use something like ASP-Linux which is designed for ASPs/ISPs but I haven't used it. We use standard Linux Distros with Webmin which someone else recommended. The are various control panels available off of the Webmin site like Virtualmin and ISP4You.

Then you can use commodity 1U chassis for substantially less than big names. Sticking with reliable components with give you inexpensive machines that will last a long long time. Before someone jumps on me saying you have to use IBM, Dell, insert-your-hardware-flavor, I used to be the CTO of a distributor that specialized in high end OEM desktops and servers so I know what I'm talking about here as well as having previously been the owner of a VAR that specialized in high end OEM gear. Now I own an ISP.

Actually webmin does have an applet for both Telnet/SSH, I found it by browsing around the screenshot section.

So I'm glancing at the intro page and I come across this little gem ...

Following the acquisition of Webmin by Caldera, ..."

That's just hillarious.

good points. Documentation does suck, and is at about the level of Windows 3.1
When I was a newbie I found the the O'Reilly books a bit intimidating. 'Running Linux' is good, though.

The only book that I found that 'spoke' to me was Mohammed Kabir's RedHat Server.

Another suggestion which I found helpful is to install Webmin, it makes playing with linux easy for beginners, and has a java filemanager interface which gives you a windows explorer type look and feel. When you have got some confidence using this, then you can go and play by directly editing the files.

You may want to try the shoreline firewallif you want to learn to use an iptables firewall on linux.(or even if you dont, you can just use shorewall and never actually write your own custom scripts.)
add wondershaper and you can have a VERY decent firewall/traffic shaper knowing almost nothing of how it works.
If you have problems editing text files(such as shorewall uses for configuration) you can also use webmin for a point and click interface with most of the funtions.

webmin can help "1st time" users setup alot of stuff easily on a *nix box..

You are assuming word processing/basic app machines, this is not necessarily a valid assumption--I've known schools that do digital video work or teach programs like Photoshop or even use programs such as Lightwave or Maya. These are *not* all that uncommon uses.

For the vast majority of systems, it is, though. On those systems that the extra video card is needed, throw it in. To get to the emac's level of video display wouldn't be more than $50-$60.

Also, on another note, macs now have Quartz Extreme and in 2005 Windows will offer "tiered" user experiences and offload the user interface to the graphics card, an integrated chipset is (likely) not going to fare as well with Longhorn.

Or, it'll be just like windows XP, where you can turn off the new GUI eye candy and use the traditional UI with no problem.

1) It is better. Whether it is worth paying for is in question, but it is better.

2) If you find another CRT, make sure the quality is good, I've seen monitors in some HS's which were so low-quality they hurt they eyes to even glance at.

Depends on the needs. Most labs could do just fine with a good 15" monitor -- the emac's 17" would be overkill. If we're talking about a homogeneous computer lab, than chances are, you can easily go cheaper, especially when buying in bulk.

XP Pro is also useful to programmers et al. Programming tools are free with the mac, they are not with the PC, so if you teach AP (or even basic) computer science you are going to need to fork over more for the PC.

Ever hear of cygwin or mingw? They're free too, ya know. And they run under XP Home.

You are also looking at Windows 2003 Server, which costs a hell of a lot more. MacOS X's unlimited client license is your friend.

Or you run a Linux server, and admin it through a tool such as webmin and save yourself some money on a server. Unlimited clients there, too.

If you are going to factor this in you might as well factor in as well that the Mac is going to cost less to support.

Depends on the IT department. I'd be willing to wager that a good IT policy, and proactive maintenance steps could bring PC and mac support costs to near equity.

• Shorewall
• SuSE Linux's "susefirewall2" (read Togan's susefirewall2 faq)
• Webmin's IPTables management module

I don't actually use the Linux command line very much these days. If you use tools like webmin you never need to use the command line. The main difference between Linux tools and windows tools is that most Windows tools a native Applications/Dlls so you have to use remote desktop (I know there are command line versions that's not the way it is done) whereas most linux tools are commandline with multiple Guis.

cdrecord is a wonderful example. It used to be just a commandline program. Here are some of the interfaces for it that I know:
Webmin - remote backups.
Nautilus - like windows explorer.
Perl scrips - automated backups.

What seems to be happening if most linux appliactions have 3 interfaces:
*A Web interface
*A commandline interface
*An appliaction interface

Some more examples that I know of:
*Dia
*Graphviz

To be honest generally the command line version have aditional options that aren't in the appliaction version but most windows appliactions that I know of are the same they just use the registry instead (Look in the Windows Knowledge base).

To be honest I can't think of anything that can't be done through a gui know. I'd still recomend doing some of them through the command line incase there are errors but it's not required.

When I started on linux I had a similar problem. While all the tools are there thay are hard to find. What they allow though is multiple interfaces.

If you want an EASY server for none technical people DON'T give them Linux. Give them an application server powered by linux.

The best example I know of is E-Smith which does everthing for you. The only problem we've had is that it doesn't handle 2,000 users very well (It was only designed for
If you want a general server then use webmin over ssl. It lets you do everything.

Once you've set these up the users never even logs onto the terminal they just use the web interface.

I see several ways.

0) If you build it, they will come.
Get a day job and give the open source world another gift. Prove that your ideas and coding are worth something with a working example. Better yet, write the code for your Senior Thesis, Masters, PhD or post-doc work. That way you get real academic credentials for your code.

1) Ask for donations
Many people have asked for simple gifts from Amazon, Amazon Honor System and Paypal to earn something.

2) Attract Hardware Makers self interest.
Hardware manufacturers and distributers have many times provided test hardware, internal specs and sometimes even sample drive code to get linux and open source support for their hardware. Some times hardware corps won't help due to Intelletual Property concerns and fear of Microsoft.

3) Corporate Support of pure Open Source software projects.
Company support is much less common with pure software projects than hardware driver projects. Companies that sell support services, e.g. IBM, have been very generious. Distrobution providers such as RedHat, Mandrake, and others, have also support key projects.

4) Sell expansion customizations and features
This requires planning when you start the project. If the project frame work handles plug ins easily, this model may be much easier to work with. Webmin is a good example of a project like this.

5) Dual track licenses
Ghostscript, the opensource PostScript language interpreter, used for printing and viewing PDF files, has a dual track license, where GPL version is released months after the restricted version of software. Non-commercial use of the restricted software is free, but the commercial users must pay a license to require and/or redistribute the restricted newest version. If they wait, they can use the GPL version as per normal.

6) Pay for Book or Documentation
Many developers have written the definative guide to their software. Printing a book ensures they get some money for the work. Enlightened publishers such as OReilly have let projects such as SAMBA redistribute free PDF copies for all users of the project, letting readers see the value, and then buy this critical refence book. But remember, few projects have the depth or significance to require a full book.

7) Contract Work
Your client, a School, Business, local gevernment, hires you to solve their problem, write several key requirements into the contract, such as, "Coder owns the rights to code, this is not a work for hire. Coder delivers GPL version of final deliverable to the Client." This allows Client to fix code should you be hit by a bus, and the GPL project to get started. This allows the coder to assign the right to Free Software Foundation, and fork licenses like GhostScript.

8) Non-Profit Foundation Grant
Grant writing produces bigger blocks of money than paypal donations, for short periods of time (1 to 3 years), and are almost never renewed. Grants are complex business. Also foundation generally do NOT understand software, which could create havoc with developers and foundations, trying to figure out how to guage a successful grant. Open Source coders need to record copies downloaded, bugs squashed, features added, and estimate user community attained with such financial support. This is not stuff open source people normally spend much time on. Once the grant expires, its back to rice and beans, or mana from heav^H^H^H^H err... IBM.

9) Hotmail business model
Pay for development because it helps your bottom line, and open source tools let you scale your business faster. Give back what you write, cause all those open source tools you are using are saving you a pile on licenses.

10) Create an honor system license
Ask corprate IT chiefs to buy fig leaf GPL license that will make it past their accountants, an

One word: webmin.

At the high school where I teach, we would have moved to DHCP much more quickly if our NT 4.0 server hadn't kept producing Dr. Watson reports whenever we tried to start the DHCP server (this was a couple years ago). For a while, we stuck with static IPs, which was a pain considering the hundreds of machines on our network.

After a while, we found a spare machine we had laying around (a P166, I think), installed Mandrake on it and had DHCP up and running that afternoon. None of us were really that experienced with Linux at the time, either, but it wasn't too hard for a high school teacher and a couple students to get it running with the help of some online HOWTOs. Now we run DHCP as a process on our school's web server because it doesn't cause a performance hit and that server is more likely to stay up than the previous machine.

These days it's even easier to set up DHCP in Linux because you can do it through Webmin or any number of other graphical tools. Any Linux admin that requires 10 hours to set up DHCP is either incompetent or ripping you off.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi

Complex websites are as legitimate pieces of software as your word processor. They have routines and they maintain state (albeit painfully). They also have bugs. They can have development cycles and release schedules. Just like software. You have to pay attention to threading and memory usage just like real software.

In short, websites are often not collections of html documents comparable to a PDF file, but true pieces of software that require thought and analysis throughout the development cycle. To get an idea of this, download a copy of phpMyAdmin or webmin and have a look at the source. Slashcode is also a good example.

1) Perhaps it takes a while longer to get Apache up vs. IIS (or most *nix server packages vs. their MS equivalents), but you are far more likely to really understand what Apache's exact role is and how it functions, while with IIS most of the details are purposefully hidden on you. Perhaps you really don't care about them, but when something b0rks down the road, believe me, you'll be begging for a good old man page to help you decipher what went wrong.

2) After the inital setup, getting the other 99 boxes in the cluster set up and running is a matter of copying the binaries & config files around in a single "foreach" loop, instead of removing the CD, moving over to the next one, and starting the IIS install & config all over again. With *nix, managing 100's of servers is a piece of cake after you've taken care of the "master" machine. (ok, I've been a *nix nut for a few years now, so perhaps windows has a better way to manage clusters presently).

3) If you don't want to learn all the inner workings of your system (although I'd argue it's only benefitial, especially when it comes to security and troubleshooting), you can always install one of many "config" front-ends to take care of all the nasty details, such as WebMin (which also has some nice clustering config modules).

4) Finally, any good linux distro makes most of the configuration as simple as the windows equiv., be them front-end GUIs, web-apps, or even command-line tools. It's rare these days to have to manually DL the .tar.gz, unpack, ./configure, make, make test, make install, etc. Most package managers will do this for you (or DL the binaries/RPMs). But then at least you have the option of getting your hands dirty should you need to.

As usual,

I am ignorant of theses types of issues but isn't this just like using Webmin.

1. I have a small team of folks that are constantly rotating because we don't have the money to keep them on indefinately, and as soon as they have enough knowledge, they take off for better digs -- which I don't blame them what so ever. These folks have to take care of a lot of the minor details but don't have the big picture that comes from a full time job for several years and experience that comes from this type of activity.

   I personally try to keep up with the systems we have running...but while its not hard, in most of the real world, babysitting a single server will not get you far. If thats all most of us were doing, we'd be able to easily take care of this stuff.

Secondly, why do you ever have to baby sit a server? There are tools that allow you to keep multiple systems up to date and monitor the health of them automatically. Backups should be checked a few minutes in the morning and adjusted if needed.

The rest of your day can be on other things.

1. I have a small team of folks that are constantly rotating because we don't have the money to keep them on indefinately, and as soon as they have enough knowledge, they take off for better digs -- which I don't blame them what so ever. These folks have to take care of a lot of the minor details but don't have the big picture that comes from a full time job for several years and experience that comes from this type of activity.

   I personally try to keep up with the systems we have running...but while its not hard, in most of the real world, babysitting a single server will not get you far. If thats all most of us were doing, we'd be able to easily take care of this stuff.

Secondly, why do you ever have to baby sit a server? There are tools that allow you to keep multiple systems up to date and monitor the health of them automatically. Backups should be checked a few minutes in the morning and adjusted if needed.

The rest of your day can be on other things.

True enough. We use this in high-schools, where the same kind of problem exists, and have solved it by also setting the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\DeleteRoamingCache property. That way, the local cached copy of the profile is deleted as soon as the user logs off, leaving nothing with which the next user could tamper (however, this doesn't work if the profile is stored on a NTFS partition)

... it also works on mail settings and pre-configures mail profiles with the user's correct information.

For this purpose, we use a %USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Mozilla\registry.dat file, which points to a directory on the user's home directory (H:\ drive). The user's personal settings (mail username, full name, etc.) are stored in the user's H:\Mozilla\prefs.js file on the server, and we have a server side utility ("greenbutton") accessible through our webmin based administration interface with which we can reset it to default values taken out of /etc/passwd and /etc/userDB

You mean like this?

I realize a good perl script could do this and would write one if that's what it takes. I was asking about solutions others have done.

It's nice to reuse existing code. You get something that has been tested more thoroughly and had the bugs shaken out(mostly at least). It's nice to see proven error trapping and what does and doesn't work. Why should you go through all the trouble of writing a new program and the downtimes when it needs more debugging when someone has already gone through this and is sharing their results?

Your comment could as easily said python, php, monkeys with typewriters, etc. but it really wouldn't have added too much to the discussion. What would you do with your perl script, how would you go about structuring it, what kind of error checking? These would be better comments to add.

Sounds like a job for a good Perl script using CGI

Umm, you did read the part about him using Webmin, right?

As you apparently have ADD, here is the important part from that web page:

Webmin consists of a simple web server, and a number of CGI programs which directly update system files like /etc/inetd.conf and /etc/passwd. The web server and all CGI programs are written in Perl version 5

Totally excellent system configuration GUI - check out WebMin - not only does it have a sweet SendMail config interface, it'll also config just about anything else on your system.

http://www.webmin.com/

Get Webmin..that's about as easy as it gets! WEBMIN

Why mess with perfection?

Ok, maybe not perfection, but Webmin rocks !!!

It also happens to be the best one, but that's another stuff.