Linux Timesaving Techniques

Saving Time with This Book

The Timesaving Techniques For Dummies books focus on high-payoff techniques that save you time, either on the spot or somewhere down the road. And these books get to the point in a hurry, with step-by-step instructions to pace you through the tasks you need to do, without any of the fluff you don’t want. We’ve identified more than 60 techniques that Linux users need to know to make the most of their time. In addition, each technique includes figures that make following along a breeze. Decide for yourself how to use this book: Read it cover to cover if you like, or skip right to the technique that interests you the most.

In Linux Timesaving Techniques For Dummies, you can find out how to

*. Tame time-consuming tasks: We’re letting you in on more than 60 tips and tricks for your Linux system, so you can spend more time on creating great results and less time on fiddling with a fea­ture so that it works correctly.

*. Take your skills up a notch: You’re already famil­iar with the basics of using Linux. Now this book takes you to the next level, helping you become a more powerful user.

*. Customize Linux to meet your needs: Spending some upfront time customizing Linux so that it works faster, more reliably, and more like how you work on a daily basis can save you time (and aggravation) later.

*. Fine-tune your system: You can fine-tune your Linux system for better performance and usabil­ity. Customizing your system to better serve users saves everyone time.

*. Improve your system security: Building a secure user environment with good user hygiene and regular backups will save everyone time. With adequate security in place, your chances of hav­ing to restore your system are minimized.

*. Automate repetitive tasks: You can automate and schedule repetitive tasks to run while you’re away, and save the bandwidth for the times that you need it most.

What’s in This Book

This book is organized into parts — groups of tech­niques about a common subject that will save you time and help you get your system running better. Each technique is written to be independent of the others, so you only need to implement those tech­niques that are important to you and your users. From time to time, we may send you to another tech­nique to implement a feature that we’ll be using in our current technique — we just don’t want to waste valuable space repeating ourselves. Each of the parts is about a different facet of a Linux system so you can scan the part title easily, looking for problem-solving techniques that will help you, quick.

Part I: Making the Desktop Work for You

Part I is full of tips and techniques to help you make the most of your time at the desktop. Teaching your system how to recognize file types (so you don’t have to specify them every time you open a file), keyboard shortcuts, and customizing your prompt are included among the techniques. We also include a rundown on the KDE protocols and the GNOME virtual file systems — the handy tools that work in a browser window to access other sources (like cam­eras or CDs). You’ll also find techniques about using automagic variables and history files to make the command line simple, easy, and quick.

Part II: Getting the Most from Your File System

This part focuses on moving and sharing data. Using Windows filesharing across a network, finding the files you need when you need them, and some quick downloading techniques are included in this part. This part also includes a technique about using User Mode Linux to create a playpen with a built-in copy of Fedora — handy if you need to jail a server or just want to experiment with program modifications safely.

Part III: Good Housekeeping with Linux

You’ll find techniques to help you make the most of the RPM tool (the Red Hat Package Manager) for installations, updates, and queries. Part III also includes a technique introducing you to Synaptic — a handy tool that will keep your software current and up-to-date with just a few clicks of the mouse. We’ll also introduce you to task scheduling tools that can help you automate administrative tasks to run without any supervision at all. Everyday timesaving doesn’t get much better than Part III.

Part IV: Tweaking the Kernel on Your Linux System

The techniques in Part IV are dedicated to the ker­nel. We’ll show you how to build a new kernel, clean up an old kernel, or find out about the condition of your existing kernel. We’ll also introduce you to SE Linux — the new security-enhanced kernel fresh with this release of Fedora.

Part V: Securing Your Workspace

Part V is all about security — we’ll introduce you to PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules), and show you quick ways to encrypt e-mail and files to keep the prying eyes of snoops out of your personal docu­ments. We’ll also show you how to safeguard your system by using sudo to dole out the superuser privi­leges to only those users on your system who need them. Your system will be a safer place with the techniques in Part V implemented.

Part VI: Networking Like a Professional

The techniques in Part VI focus on using network features and network analysis tools to your advan­tage. We’ll show you how to set up and use remote desktops from your local system, as well as how to share desktops with remote users. We’ll also show you how to take care of your network security by building sturdy but supple firewalls, and how to harden those firewalls with the network security analysis tool, Nessus. We’ll also show you how to watch network traffic to see what’s traveling across your network to your users.

Part VII: Monitoring Your System

In this part, we’ll introduce you to tools that will help you keep an eye on your system resources and control runaway processes. We’ll also show you some quick ways to take care of users and their accounts — both new users and old.

Part VIII: Serving Up the Internet and More

In Part VIII, we’ll focus on server-related issues. We’ll show you the quick way to build and configure an Apache Web server, a Sendmail mail server, and a MySQL database server, as well as how to monitor your servers once they’re in place. We’ll also show you how to make your new Web site a more secure place with SSL certificates, and the easy way to cre­ate your own certificate signing authority. Then we’ll delve into e-mail — you’ll save a ton of time with our techniques that help you avoid spam with SpamAssassin and retrieve your HTTPMail (that’s Hotmail, MSN, and Lycos mail) with hotway, avoiding all of the ads and pop-ups that come with most Internet mail accounts.

Part IX: Backing Up Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry

The techniques in this part are all about backing up. Techniques include getting ready to back up your data, choosing a fast but sturdy backup scheme, implementing a good backup routine, and backing

up to remote storage. We’ll also introduce you to CVS archiving — a great way to keep not only cur­rent renditions of projects, but also a living history of a project’s growth.

Part X: Programming Tricks

These techniques will help you save time in your programming projects. You’ll find a technique that helps you use prewritten, open-source APIs in your own code to help you cover ground quickly. You’ll also find a technique that focuses on moving data in and out of your PHP code. We’ll also introduce you to a great graphical debugger (DDD) that will save you time when you need to debug your code — that’s the last thing you want to spend too much time on.

Part XI: The Scary (Or Fun!) Stuff

This part contains a medley of timesaving tech­niques that will help you burn CDs, find dangerous programs, create a UML jail, troubleshoot problem programs, and more. We’ll introduce you to Bastille, a system-hardening, open-source tool that makes most security schemes look wimpy. We’ll also give you the rundown on LIDS — an under-documented but powerful security tool that you can use on your system to create a secure user environment. We’ll throw in an introduction to Zenity — a handy toolkit you can use to add graphical prompts to any user shell scripts you use on your system.
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