Tips from “The Official Ubuntu Book”

 

• The CVE number is a unique identifier for a security vulnerability. You can look it up on http://cve.mitre.org to see what the exact flaw was.
• The story of RAID: Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID for a detailed explanation of all RAID modes.
• HOWTO for RAID and LVM: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO.html and http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO
• The Ubuntu Archive: Here’s the repository breakdown:
  • Main: This includes all packages installed by default; these packages have official support
  • Restricted: These are packages with restricted copyright, often hardware drivers
  • Backports: There are newer versions of packages in the archive, provided by the community
  • Universe: The universe includes packages maintained by the Ubuntu community
  • Multiverse: The multiverse includes packages that are not free (in the sense of freedom)
• Running a Distribution Upgrade:

  sudo sed –i “s/breezy/dapper/” /etc/apt/sources.list sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

• User Account Administration: But since Ubuntu fully inherits Debian’s user administration model……let us refer you to http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/debian/chapter/book/ch07_01.html for basics. (OREILLY – Learning Debian GNU/Linux)
• visudo /etc/sudoers
• System Resource Limits: The possible settings are all explained in the comment within the file.

  sudoedit /etc/security/limits.conf

• System Log File:
  • /var/log/syslog – general system log
  • /var/log/auth.log – system authentication logs
  • /var/log/mail.log – system mail log
  • /var/log/messages – general log messages
  • /var/log/dmesg – kernel ring buffer messages, usually since system bootup
• Your Log Toolbox: tail, zgrep, zcat, zless
• A sprinkling of Network Security: iptables
• The excellent documentation on the GRUB web site at www.gnu.org/software/grub/
• Backup and Restore Boot Sector

  sudo dd if=/dev/hda of=MBR-backup bs=512 count=1 –> backing up sudo dd if=MBR-backup of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1  -->restoring in rescue mode

• Text booting: /boot/grub/menu.1st, remove “splash” from line:

kernel        /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-10-386 root=/dev/hda1 ro quiet splash

• Add TrueType Fonts to Desktop Quickly: copy TrueType fonts to directory ~/.fonts.