Charly’s Column SYSADMIN

The Sysadmin’s Daily Grind: Serendipity ME UP! From time to time, sys admin Charly has to leave the beaten track and concern himself with topics outside of his core competency range. When this happens, it’s good to have the right tools on hand.

BY CHARLY KÜHNAST Beboy, Fotolia

ometimes even Star Trek’s Scotty Sometimes warp factor 1 just isn’t [1] can’t avoid tasks that are not enough. Recently, I needed a web page, Shis specialty, no matter how similar to a blog, that gave users the op- often he complains, “I’m a mechanic, tion of commenting on part of the con- face provides a multitude of plugins just not a doctor.” The solutions he uses to tent. The Serendipity [2] blog engine is waiting for their marching orders (see rescue the Enterprise from what feels flexible enough to serve as a makeshift Figure 1). like hundreds of warp-drive meltdowns CMS, and it guarantees fast results. Using a couple of plugins, I can easily are correspondingly unorthodox. S9y, as the Serendipity community insert external HTML or PHP code into When it comes to tools, Scotty has a likes to abbreviate its favorite product, the page structure. I need this function clear opinion: “Always use the proper needs fairly recent PHP packages and a quite often, for example, to integrate RRD graphs or Nagios results. I added some seasoning in the form of discus- sion forums, galleries, connectors for a huge number of instant messengers, and dozens of other nice things to have – all of them beamed directly from the plugin directory. This doesn’t mean that I neglected the security side, though. Developer Garvin Hicking’s team loves clean code, so Figure 1: With its great selection of plugins, the Serendipity blog engine surprises. much so that they plugins with un- equivocal warnings if the plugin seems tool. If the proper tool isn’t available, connection. After you finish best suited to shooting yourself in the use a hammer.” unpacking the source files, copy them to foot. a directory on your web server, change Warp 2 to the directory, and then enjoy the in- Lawyer’s Best Friend When I’m asked to build websites, I can stallation, which runs perfectly in a The commentary system, which is im- empathize with Scotty. I’m a sys admin, browser. portant for my application, has had a not a web designer! After you finish installing it, S9y looks double opt-in feature in its Subscribe The fact that I use vi to produce my just like you would expect a blog to function since Serendipity 1.4. Unfortu- HTML code gives the results an ascetic, look; however, the administrative inter- nately, clever lawyers have been known reduced-to-the-max kind of feel. The to sue because, in their opinions, mails code does the job, but the results look Charly Kühnast is a from a commentary thread you sub- pretty bad. Scotty would love me for Unix operating sys- scribe to are the legal equivalent of a this. tem administrator newsletter, and you need a double opt-in at the Data Center for newsletters. Scotty would just say: SYSADMIN in Moers, Germany. “I’m a mechanic, not a lawyer.” ■ His tasks include Security Lessons ...... 58 firewall and DMZ INFO Learn how OSSEC automatically detects security and availability. He divides and responds to attacks. his leisure time into hot, wet, and [1] Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott: THE AUTHOR THE Portsmith ...... 60 eastern sectors, where he enjoys http://en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ Montgomery_Scott Find out about a free and easy option for cooking, fresh water aquariums, and authentication at the firewall. learning Japanese, respectively. [2] Serendipity:http:// www. s9y. org

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