Unix Archive

Like it or not, but sooner or later you realize that you'll have to write shell-scripts to administer UNIX. And among these scripts there certainly will be those to cooperate with interactive applications such as telnet, ftp, su, password, ssh. But it means the end of the admin's quiet life because while dealing with interactive programs one often come across numerous hidden traps which doesn't usually happen with ordinary sh-scripts. Though fortunately or may be not, but most of these problems generally turn up within first five minutes of the work under the script. The symptoms typically look like that author can't pass the authentication from the script. At first you feel confused because usual pipe constructions such as:

This is a report on the third and final day of USENIX 2005. You might want to start at my report on Day one and then move to Day two. Day three of USENIX 2005 has come and is now almost gone. When you get to a conference, it always seems like the days will stretch on forever. Then before you know it, everything is all over and you are on your way home. Its kind of like summer camp, I guess.

"Has it managed to completely escape the attention of the "open source" movement that Adobe, Macromedia, Corel, and so forth have blithely continued to remain virtually Windows-only while waiting for the dust to settle? Only now they have realized that it won't settle and oh-so-quietly the rush of announcements of support for Linux has not translated into a rush of quality applications." Read the editorial here. I've written a similar editorial a few years back.

As data storage requirements increase and computing needs change, flexibility within server configurations and in storage configurations becomes more important. Find out how the HP Smart Array controller provides the tools you need in this chapter.

Some time back, I promised to double-check Sun executive Larry Singer’s “Reality Check” missives on HP. A week ago, Mr. Singer penned a Reality Check that, in light of HP’s decision to cancel its TruCluster integration effort, does in fact reflect more reality than rhetoric. It also reflects Mr. Singer’s opinions, some of which differ from mine. Presented herewith is Larry’s write-up, laced with a few comments of my own.

The operating system family that powers the lion's share of servers is losing ground to Windows and Linux. Unix is losing so much ground that IT research firm IDC is predicting Windows will take over as the dominant server operating system by the year 2008.