Joshua Drake

(LinuxWorld) -- As I write this column, the world suffers infestation by yet another Internet worm, and again the worms are intended to attack Microsoft-based machines. Fortunately for my company, we don't run any Microsoft-based machines, but the Nimda worm still affects us.   Nimda eats our bandwidth since other companies sharing our subnet are running infectious Windows 98, NT, and 2000 machines. These diseased, ill-maintained beasts from the land of insufficient light are now trying to infest our stable, secure, long running, easy-to-use, well-behaved Linux machines. (Can you tell I'm a bit irritated?)   This has led me to start editing some of our firewall rules, and in the process, consider that, as we have recently migrated to the 2.4 kernel, some people may b... (more)

Configuring a quick-and-dirty router and proxy

Q: Maybe you can help. I want to set up my Mandrake 7.2 machine as a router and proxy with a 3Com 56K Message Modem (serial) as dialup-on-demand and a 3Com 3c509 Ethernet card. A: Setting up a router and proxy is a huge subject, but I will give you the basics and some pointers to get you started. There are a couple of technical terms that you have to be familiar with. The first is "IP-Masq... (more)

Top 10 Linux questions & answers

(LinuxWorld) -- As a Linux consultant and programmer, I find many newcomers to Linux have preconceived ideas of how Linux should work, which leads to confusion and problems. Whether they are former Macintosh or Windows users, Linux newbies are accustomed to frequent crashes and rebooting. PC users often sport a worldview where the expression of a computer's power is limited to the softw... (more)

How to stop crackers with PortSentry

(LinuxWorld) -- My last SysAdmin column was a modest attempt to bring some basic awareness on Linux 2.4 firewalling. This week we will continue on the security-focused path, bringing forth a plethora of knowledge for the uninitiated. The topic: PortSentry from Psionic Software. PortSentry is an easy-to-install application that is designed to assist a Linux user in their attempts to stop t... (more)

Protecting your network with Snort

(LinuxWorld) -- In our most recent SysAdmin article I promised an overview of Snort, the open source network intrusion detection system. I considered not writing the article after seeing the volume of options available to users of Snort, but decided that since I have received International Fame and Recognition from my security series, that I would go ahead with the article. The following... (more)