In the first two articles in the series, we chose to use existing tools in a non-traditional way in order to solve a problem. This time, we’re going to use an often overlooked tool exactly as it was meant to be used.
Here’s the scenario. A group of related servers is managed by a group of system administrators that all have root access. If a system administrator leaves the company (for any reason), they are required to change the root password. The new password needs to be the same on each host, with the same hash string in order for it to pass security auditing. Logging into each server to manually change the password is not an option, and even if it was, it certainly isn’t efficient. (I know kerberos is also an answer, but not for this customer.) » Read more
In our last article, we solved a problem by adding additional configuration to an existing environment. And while fairly trivial, it wasn’t something available in any official documentation. This month, we’ll take that same approach to answering a very common question in regard to Provisioning with the Red Hat® Network® (RHN) Satellite server.
For anyone who has used the Satellite server to Kickstart a server, the hostname “unknown” is very well known in your environment. (In some environments, it comes up as the temporary hostname defined by DHCP.) This usually generates several questions. Is something broken? Why doesn’t Satellite address this? Why is everything else in my Kickstart process automated but the hostname? All of these are great questions. The short answer is that the hostname hasn’t been defined yet and nothing is broken. » Read more
One of the many uses of having a Red Hat Consultant on site is to provide “best practices” in regard to using or deploying Red Hat Linux or any of Red Hat’s applications. These best practices come from the way a product was written as well as how the product was originally intended to be used. Although we lean towards sticking to these best practices and procedures, sometimes they need to be modified and adjusted to meet the special needs of a client. Knowing how to make a product work within a customer’s specialized environment is also a great use of a Red Hat Consultant. » Read more
Kadischi was created in 2005 by Darko Ilic specifically for creating Fedora based Live CDs. Although it is still in active early development, it is still quite usable. What this means to the average user, is that there currently are not any RPMs for Kadischi; it is only downloadable from CVS. Fear not, this is covered below, and it’s quite easy to build.
Also, as Max Speveck pointed out in his Fedora Corner article in January, the Live CD is a major goal for Fedora 7. Perhaps Kadischi will be in RPM form by then…
» Read more
Normally, a computer has an operating system installed on the hard drive. When the computer powers up, the hard drive reads the operating system, loads it into memory, and the system is ready to go.
With a live CD, the operating system is on the CD-ROM, and the system boots from that, completely bypassing the hard drive.
