I just read through most of O’Reilly’s Linux Server Hacks book.
I expected another dull Linux how-to book, which goes over the man/info of the most obvious commands, but instead I found an interesting, original, advanced hardcore book, full of Linux goodies to brag about in front of my colleagues.

toilet fun

Some note worthy items:

  • A thought effective usage of SSH, especially as a secure channel for moving bits around the network, between a pair of processes each running on its own host.
  • How to reset your root password, without a rescue disk, using the LILO boot loader.
  • I didn’t knew about ext2/3 chattr and lsattr before reading the book…
  • Periodical rsync runs could save a lot wasted scp time.
  • (#44) burning a CD over the network using a pipe – cool
  • (#50) setting up a VPN using IPIP tunneling :-)
  • (#57) lsof – hey, I’ve been using it for years.
  • (#63) loved to learn that the send_arp utility can help me to revoke all of the subnet’s machine (and router?) IP->mac mapping. Handy when setting up a two bits IP fail-over system.
  • (#68) ssh-agent – now I know what it is – very useful in the hands of an all mighty admin ruling over hundreds of minions machines.
  • (#73) loved the one-liners perl scriptlets.

To conclude, a must have in your bathroom library.