Announcing the release of Fedora Core 5

Announcing the release of Fedora Core 5

Hi, my name is Fedora Core "Bordeaux", and today I am 5.  When I
turned 4 last year, they got a funny salesman to talk about me like I
was a toy.  I like toys.  But today Teacher said I am a big kid, and I
should talk about myself.  I can do lots of big kid stuff now, and
everyone tells me that I play really well with all the other kids in
class, even the ones who are mean like bullies.  I always try and
share, which is what Teacher says is the best thing.

Sharing is a really good thing to do.  I like to share all my toys and
books and stuff with all the other kids so that they can play with
them and even learn things, too.  I have a lot of neat stuff to share,
so I made this cool list to tell you all about it.  Teacher gave me
some things to put in the list, but since I'm a big kid I think I
should get to say what I want, too.

* GNOME 2.14

"Improved speed and usability, and new and better features for power
management, file sharing, user help, system administration,
teleconferencing, picture browsing, and networking."  I think it's
easy enough for even my little brother to use, but Mommy and Daddy
like it a lot too.

* OpenOffice 2.0.2

"Enhanced productivity features, extensive compatibility with other
popular office software, database connectivity functions, and improved
use of system libraries for faster loading and better responsiveness
overall."  Mommy says she can make slide shows for work even easier
than before, and Daddy uses it to organizes all our books, music, and
movies in databases.

* KDE 3.5.1

"New and exciting features for users and developers, including stylish
and attractive applets, educational and entertaining games, incredibly
standards-compliant Internet tools, and enhanced multimedia and
usability."  Plus it looks REALLY cool, especially when my big sister
fixes it just the way she likes.

* Mono

"Support for .NET means a new generation of dynamic and powerful
cross-platform applications, with some already included, such as
Tomboy for note-taking, F-Spot for photo management, and Beagle for
content searching and indexing."  See, I told you I'm really good at
sharing!  Plus, I don't ever have a problem remembering or finding
things, like pictures, homework, or messages.  Mommy says she's really
proud of me.

* Yum-based Package Tools

"Installation and software management tools are all based on the
flexible and powerful yum utility for easy selection and upgrade of
new and existing software."  And soon, I'll even be able to get my own
special software at install time!

* Xen Virtualization

"The best framework yet for installation, management, migration, and
monitoring of software-based virtual domains, allowing system owners
to effectively leverage and force-multiply existing hardware for
maximum efficiency, scalability, redundancy, and flexibility."
Teacher says I get more work done faster than any other kid in our
class, too.

* Apache HTTP Server 2.2

"Enhanced authentication, database support, proxy facilities, and
content filtering, all built on the most stable and customizable
platform for Web services."

* Enhanced Security

"Support for SELinux binary policy modules means that users and
developers can now ship their own specialized policies with affected
software.  GCC's best of breed features, such as stack protection, NX,
PIE, and compile-time buffer checks, pile on additional layers of
assurance to effectively block illegal ingress."  I know all my safety
rules, and Mommy and Daddy say that it's really, REALLY hard for
monsters to get in our house!


So at school, I got awards for "Best Attendance," "Teacher's Pet,"
"Honor Roll," and "Good Manners," plus Teacher lets me stay after to
clean the erasers until Daddy comes to pick me up.  He always tells me
how good I am compared to the other kids he knows and that he's really
proud of me.  He says it's because I'm 100% free and open source, and
because I always try to do the right thing just like he and Mommy
taught me.

I told him I didn't just learn it from him, but from all the nice
people at Red Hat and the Fedora community, who teach me new things
all the time.  They're all different kinds of people -- users,
developers, writers, translators, testers, editors, and so many other
things I can't even write it all.  They're the people who make it
possible to build a complete Linux platform from open source software.

But they say we're not done yet, and we can ALWAYS use more friends to
help, so if you think this sounds neat, you should definitely visit:

* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/HelpWanted

All right, I have to go now.  There's always more things to learn and
do and I am a very, extremely busy kid.  'Bye!

- - -

Fedora is a set of projects sponsored by Red Hat and guided by the
contributors.  These projects are developed by a large community of
people who strive to provide and maintain the very best in free, open
source software and standards. Fedora Core, the central Fedora project,
is an operating system and platform, based on Linux, that is always free
for anyone to use, modify, and distribute, now and forever.

Fedora Core 5 is available at absolutely no cost.  To download it:

VIA BITTORRENT (RECOMMENDED):

* http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/bordeaux-binary-i386.torrent
* http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/bordeaux-binary-x86_64.torrent
* http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/bordeaux-binary-ppc.torrent

For DVD and other formats, refer to http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/

If you run an earlier version of Fedora Core, you can get BitTorrent
from Fedora Extras.  If you are using another platform, you can get
BitTorrent at:

* http://www.bittorrent.com/

VIA WEB:

Visit the main Fedora download site listed below.  You will be automatically
redirected to a mirror of Fedora Core 5.  There may be delays due to site
congestion, especially in the days immediately following the release, so
BitTorrent is recommended instead.

* http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/5


VIA CD/DVD:

Visit the following site for a list of vendors of Fedora Core CD/DVD
media:

* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Distribution/OnlineVendors

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Argogroup : Home

Argogroup : Home

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Advertising: mobile marketing conversion rates

Advertising: mobile marketing conversion rates

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MMA Global - 89% of Major Brands Planning to Market via Mobile Phones by 2008; Mobile Marketing to Accelerate with More Than Half of Brands Planning t

MMA Global - 89% of Major Brands Planning to Market via Mobile Phones by 2008; Mobile Marketing to Accelerate with More Than Half of Brands Planning to Spend up to 25% of Marketing Budget (Airwide Solutions)

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Syslog-ng

shib·bo·leth (shĭb'ə-lĭth, -lĕth')
n.

1. A word or pronunciation that distinguishes people of one group or class from those of another.
2. 1. A word or phrase identified with a particular group or cause; a catchword.
   2. A commonplace saying or idea.
3. A custom or practice that betrays one as an outsider.

http://www.campin.net/newlogcheck.html

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bssrvrlnx/chapter/ch10.pdf

http://www.balabit.com/products/syslog_ng/

http://dmourati.blogspot.com/2006/02/splunk-question-and-answer.html

http://dmourati.blogspot.com/2006/01/splunk-and-syslog-ng.html

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Splunk Integration With OpenSSH

This blog post covers Splunk Integration with OpenSSH. OpenSSH is the lifeblood of any distributed Linux system. I practically live inside and SSH session. During any given day, I may SSH into 20 different system all around the world. As such, it is important to keep track of what SSH is doing. What better way than with Splunk?

This integration actually picks up after some work I did earlier integrating Splunk with Syslog-ng. For more information on how I'm setup, please read my earlier post

Splunk and syslog-ng

Now that I have remote syslog enabled, I can do all kinds of cool stuff. This is especially useful for troubleshooting large networks of interconnected systems where SSH is undoubtedly already in play. My syslog-ng configuration is already being processed by Splunks tailingprocesser which is looking at all the stock syslog-ng files plus per host syslog-ng directories for remote syslog. Here' s a look at my central syslog-ng configuration:

[root@demetri05 log]# find remote-syslog-ng/
remote-syslog-ng/
remote-syslog-ng/demetri04
remote-syslog-ng/demetri04/secure
remote-syslog-ng/demetri04/messages
remote-syslog-ng/demetri04/cron
remote-syslog-ng/demetri04/boot.log
remote-syslog-ng/demetri04/maillog
remote-syslog-ng/demetri04/kern
remote-syslog-ng/demetri05
remote-syslog-ng/demetri05/boot.log
remote-syslog-ng/demetri05/cron
remote-syslog-ng/demetri05/secure
remote-syslog-ng/demetri05/messages
remote-syslog-ng/demetri05/maillog
remote-syslog-ng/demetri05/kern
remote-syslog-ng/splunk
remote-syslog-ng/splunk/demetri04-messages
remote-syslog-ng/splunk/demetri05-messges


To get a sense of just how pervasive SSH is in my environment, take a look at the following splunk. This shows that in the past day, there are over 10,000 events relating to SSH. Wow. So far I've uploaded all the standard SSH messages I could generate. That turned out to be around 20 types or so. Now, I'm going to make some changes to my SSH server to increase its logging level. Take a look at the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file for reference:

# Logging
#obsoletes QuietMode and FascistLogging
#SyslogFacility AUTH
SyslogFacility AUTHPRIV
#LogLevel INFO

You'll notice a large uptick in the number of events starting in the 12:00 PM hour today. That's becaue I've changed the LOGLEVEL configuration in my /etc/ssh/sshd_config file to DEBUG. WARNING, don't do this on any system with real users. According to the manpage "Logging with a DEBUG level violates the privacy of users and is not recommended." This is my system and I'm the only user so I can proceed but I won't leave this in place beyond my work today for reasons of privacy and also to keep my log files manageable.

Here's a look at the type of events generated by the inceased LOGLEVL in SSHD. This time I'm splunking for sshd debug1.
That's kind of cool, actually. Now I have a whole set of new event types to upload to SplunkBase. Again, the fact remains that real systems shouldn't be configured with this level of logging for SSH but I'll make sure to note that in all my event descriptions once they're uploaded. I'm going to simplify my work by sorting the events into event types and then uploading each event type on up to SplunkBase for integration. That way I'll be sure to get all the event types up there without worrying about duplicating log submissions. At the moment, I see 36 event types related to SSH and the new DEBUG loglevel I've put in place.
I'm drilling down on each of these event types, then uploading the corresponding log entry up to splunk base one at a time. It seems like this is uncharted territory as far as SplunkBase is concerned. Each of these event types are new which is cool.

As I go, I'm keeping an eye on the total number of event types I've submitted to SplunkBase by watching my splunk user page here:

http://www.splunk.com/user/dmourati

At the moment, I'm at 383 total event types submitted and counting. Completing this SSH debug logging should push the total above 400 types.

Now I'm going to reset the LOGLEVL on my SSH configuration to turn off all this DEBUG level logging.
That in turn generated a bunch more event types moving the total from 36 to 43. Hmm. Let me add those for good measure. The new event types are easy enough to spot because they each have only one associated event.

Here's a link to the last event type from my SSH DEBUG testing:

http://www.splunk.com/event/SP-CAAAC5H

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Splunk Integration with Firefox

OK, so this isn't much of an integration, per se. But a nice tip nonetheless.

I've been doing a lot of splunking lately. Here's one tip I wish I had back when I got started.

First, upgrade to Fifrefox 1.5. I downloaded a linux tarball here:

http://www.mozilla.com/products/download.html?product=firefox-1.5.0.1&os=linux&lang=en-US

Go to Edit->Prefences
Select Tabbed Browsing
Select "New Tab" from the "Load Web Browswer Links into a:" pulldown.

Note, under windows, the option was slightly different. There I had to
Go to Tools->Options->Tabs

Force Links That Open New Windows in:
* a new tab

Next, for either platform, open the following url in your location bar:

about:config



Look for the preference name

browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction

Set it to 0.

Now when the JavaScript windows for SplunkBase pop up in the Check splunk.com links, they resulting page will open in a new tab instead of a new window.


One more tweak was to overcome irritating messages about unresponsive scripts. I used about:config again this time to set

dom.max_script_run_time

to 30

Other users have reported a similar need to tweak the script runtime max for Yahoo sites as well as gmail.

Here's more info on the above:

http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/tips

Nice.

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$1000 Laptop

"Hardware is a small part of the cost" of providing computing capabilities, he said, adding that the big costs come from network connectivity, applications and support.




Bill Gates mocks MIT's $100 laptop project - Yahoo! News






You know what I like about Microsoft?

Nothing.

You whow what I like about Bill Gates?

Nothing.

Yesterday I could have appluaded him for his humanitarian efforts, cover of Time, all that jazz. But now? What kind of sick bastard endows a foundation with $29 million for global health and learning then turns around and slams the $100 laptop?

It's a project from MIT. Oh, yea, I guess those guys don't know what they are talking about.

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

$100 laption, pshaw.

No, what you really need is my $1000 "ultra mobile computer." Just say that with your geekiest voice "ULTRAMOBILE COMPUTER!! UBC!! NNNAAAAA NAAAA"

What Is the Ultra-Mobile PC you ask?

The Ultra-Mobile PC is a new kind of computer. It combines the power of Windows XP with mobile-ready technologies that make it easy to access and use your software on the go.

With small, lightweight, carry-everywhere hardware designs, you can connect and communicate, accomplish any task anywhere and at any time, and be entertained and informed wherever life takes you.

Would whoever wrote that please stand up and report for beating with a wiffle ball bat?

Thank you.

So, what OS do you suppose runs on the MIT project?

Ask Nicholas Negroponte.

The machines, which will run a version of the Linux operating system, will also include other applications, some developed by MIT researchers, as well as country-specific software. "Software has gotten too fat and unreliable, so we started with Linux," he said.

Hmm. Sounds about right.

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