
Linux System Administration Basics - whalesalad
http://library.linode.com/using-linux/administration-basics
======
munctional
I disagree about nginx being more difficult to configure than Apache. Apache's
config file was terrifyingly complex to me when I first started using it.

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travisp
It's really only more difficult because people are not used to it. I find
nginx's documentation to be great and easy to understand.

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stavrianos
"It's really only more difficult because people don't know how to do it"

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atambo
It's nice to see linode's library finally catch up to slicehost's articles.
For a while it was really bare but now I prefer it over slicehost as slicehost
articles is starting to become cluttered with all the old distro specific
categories. One thing that is still missing from linode's library is nginx.

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bugs
One thing that I have noticed about slicehosts articles is that they really
just cater to two markets, the rails market and the php market and what they
do is lump rails/nginx together and php/apache together.

While this is generally okay they really don't need 7 different articles on
how to configure Ubuntu 8.04 9.04 9.10 and Debian to do the same thing, linode
at least dumps ubuntu and debian together.

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buro9
What I wanted to see was a current comprehensive guide on going beyond the
single server setup and things like nginx + PHP using PHP-FPM.

I also wanted to see guides for HAProxy, stunnel, NFS and anything to help
make iptables easier.

It's not that I can't forge on and and figure it all out, it's that I want to
be able to quickly repeat what I do and to spend less time on server admin and
more time on application development.

As I've moved to Linode only this week (their London datacenter finally
convinced me) I've now written stubs of those articles that I felt were
missing, so if anyone wants a high availability, load-balanced and SSL capable
solution with a shared static file backend then these might put you on the
path I'm walking: <http://www.buro9.com/blog/2009/12/07/nfs-static-ports/>
[http://www.buro9.com/blog/2009/12/07/installing-haproxy-
load...](http://www.buro9.com/blog/2009/12/07/installing-haproxy-load-balance-
http-and-https/) [http://www.buro9.com/blog/2009/12/08/installing-
configserver...](http://www.buro9.com/blog/2009/12/08/installing-configserver-
security-firewall/)

I also found this incredibly useful... make HAProxy your virtual hosting
manager (I serve 10 sites off of 4 web servers and each site is just
identified by a different port number on the backend web servers):
<http://www.techrawr.com/tag/virtual-hosts/>

And this one on MySql replication is pretty comprehensive:
[http://aciddrop.com/2008/01/10/step-by-step-how-to-setup-
mys...](http://aciddrop.com/2008/01/10/step-by-step-how-to-setup-mysql-
database-replication/)

Failover IP config is a bit thin on the ground too... I used this guide:
[https://wiki.edubuntu.org/UbuntuHighAvailabilityTeam/Pacemak...](https://wiki.edubuntu.org/UbuntuHighAvailabilityTeam/PacemakerHeartbeat)

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ax0n
I agree we need easier-to-use documentation on this stuff, but have you
considered documenting what you've done yourself? I started keeping a notebook
of helpful tricks back in the 90s. By the mid-90s I was publishing some of the
info, and by the late 90s I had friends working with me to create articles.
This was when the e-Zine was still pseudo-popular as a channel of self-
publishing. We later went on to blog format, but the results are the same:

Your brain forgets little, but loses references to information it hasn't
needed to use in a while. Documenting things (which includes proofreading and
maybe even testing your documentation), uses repetition to solidify those
references. Some people learn by repetition better than others, but even if
it's just penciling apache config tips or iptables examples into a Moleskine
journal, writing is often one of the best ways to memorize things.

The things I've written down are the things I remember best or at least
they're the things I find easiest to come back to. It goes for the awk recipes
I've jotted down, database tuning parameters, and even automotive repair tips.

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colbyolson
This is a wealth of info for a newbie linux vps-admin like myself. Awesome
awesome awesome.

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weaksauce
Checkout the slicehost documents too if you want a different approach. They
are equally good and maybe better.

Edit link: <http://articles.slicehost.com/>

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colbyolson
I am currently a slicehost member, their articles are very nice. Thanks for
the link though.

I just like how linode starts for the VERY beginning. :-)

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berntb
I voted this up because I expected lots of references to more complete
articles. (The last decade I have only handled my own desktops/laptops.)

Come on now, give an old atheist some xmas presents! :-)

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winter_blue
From a quick look, I can say that at least half the things listed on the
article can be done on Windows Server through an intuitive GUI interface.

The simple fact that newbs and admins alike will never have to lookup the man
pages for arcane commands to accomplish simple tasks like setting the timezone
(dpkg-reconfigure tzdata) is a big difference in terms of usability.

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mindstab
the other side of the coin is I can administer a server over a text based
connection with linux, and I need a bandwidth heavy and low latency connection
to do remote GUI admin for windows. Not that anyone would any more but you can
fairly easily administer a unix server over a 56K modem still. Windows, not so
much. And once you get it, the console has a lot of expressive power that
isn't as easy to reproduce graphically.

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olefoo
Actually, having a bandwidth efficient channel for managing your machines
still matters. I've fixed servers using an ssh client on my phone, and while
it's obnoxious and not my preferred mode, it's not as bad as having to find a
place with a decent internet connection when you're on the road.

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axod
Agreed. I've fixed servers using my iPhone whilst on the train a couple of
times now. That's a pretty big win for linux/cmdline.

