Here is a quick tip that will show several methods to change the mysql root password (that is normally empty at mysql initial install).

Method 1: using the SET PASSWORD command:

mysql -u root
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'localhost' = PASSWORD('newpass');

Method 2: using mysqladmin

mysqladmin -u root password "newpass"

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Here is a quick tip how to create from mysql cli a new database and a new mysql user that has full privileges on this newly created database:
mysql -uroot -p
<enter_mysql_root_pass>
CREATE DATABASE <DB_NAME>;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON <DB_NAME>.* TO 'my_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'my_password' WITH GRANT OPTION;

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Yesterday, at the Australian national Linux conference, senior developer Martin Krafft said during a miniconference that the next release of Debian GNU/Linux, Lenny, is expected to take place before the end of 2008… However, with a twinkle in his eye, Krafft indicated that the traditional delays which have generally been a part of Debian could eventuate - “last time we were only four months late so this time if it goes into February 2009, it would be an improvement“.

Krafft also said there would be better security hardening in Lenny with compiler/linker extensions to guard against the most common run-time problems such as buffer overflows.

Full story: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/16309/1148/

DFSG stands for: Debian Free Software Guidelines. This is a set of guidelines about the license of a software package, as outlined in the Debian Social Contract. Debian has three software categories inside the repository: main, non-free and contrib. The packages go into one of the repository depending on whether their license is DFSG-compatible or not. Packages in main meet the DFSG, while packages in non-free fail to meet the DFSG, and packages in contrib are DFSG compatible but depend on packages that fail to meet the DFSG:

• main (packages meet DFSG)
• non-free (packages fail to meet DFSG)
• contrib (packages meet DFSG, but depend on packages that fail DFSG)

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Namesys, the company run by murder suspect Hans Reiser, has fallen off the face of the Internet, but the file-system software it was commercializing is still under development by volunteers.

“Commercial activity of Namesys has stopped,” said programmer and Namesys employee Edward Shishkin. But he and others continue to develop the Reiser4 file-system software.

“It is pretty active. Many people are interested in this project,” Shishkin said. “They help a lot,” he added, pointing to fixes needed to work with Linux’s virtual file system software and other changes.

From: http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9851703-39.html

Here is a list of 10 nagios 2.x web frontends that you might find useful if you are looking for a web interface to administer your nagios configuration.

1. Centreon / Oreon - http://www.centreon.com/
Centreon is a network, system, applicative supervision and monitoring tool, it is based upon the most effective Open Source monitoring engine : Nagios. Centreon provides a new frontend and new functionalities to Nagios. Read the rest of this entry »

“After all the industry speculation about MySQL being a “hot 2008 IPO”, this probably takes most of us by surprise — users, community members, customers, partners, and employees. And for all of these stakeholders, it may take some time to digest what this means. Depending on one’s relationship to MySQL, the immediate reaction upon hearing the news may be a mixture of various feelings, including excitement, pride, disbelief and satisfaction, but also anxiety.”

The deal is for approximately $1 billion in total consideration!

From: http://blogs.mysql.com/kaj/sun-acquires-mysql.html/
also more at Sun’s announcement:
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2008-01/sunflash.20080116.1.xml

The question: “Is it better to install software from sources on Linux? Or from packages? Should I get the deb/rpm or the tar?” appears often among new Linux users. This article will try to give a response to these questions and show that we should be happy that we have so many choices and can use the one that is best for ourselves. Indeed, this question makes sense only on the Linux world. Here we have different choices. We can achieve the same thing using different methods. Still, this doesn’t necessary mean that one choice is better than another one; it might just mean that some options are better for some situations and some for other situations.

This question is pointless for a windows user. Does it make any sense to ask the regular Windows computer user how will he install a new piece of software? Of course not, because the answer will most certainly be something like: “I’ll buy the software, insert the CD/DVD and the installation will start automatically. I will click several times next (this is really annoying and hope Microsoft will fix this in their next version) and that’s it”. Is this simple? Yes of course. Is this the best way? It doesn’t matter because it is the only way. Read the rest of this entry »

In a previous article I have shown how you can install memcached from sources, and also how you can install it from debian packages. If you are running RHEL or Centos you have one other choice besides installing memcached from sources. This article will show how you can easily install memcached 1.2.2 and libevent 1.3b using DAG/rpmforge repository. Read the rest of this entry »

Memcached is a high-performance, distributed memory object caching system, generic in nature, but intended for use in speeding up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load. Memcached is a great piece of software that was designed with performance in mind. Still, memcached has little (or should I say none?) security features built-in. If we run memcached on a public ip and unprotected, anyone will be able to reach it and make memcached connections. This guide is intended to show some simple steps that can be used to secure your memcached setup.

You might say that you are not saving any private information in memcached and just cache parts of your public pages. Well, even in this case you will want your memcached daemon protected and not open to DOS attacks. Basically, regardless of the data you will cache (even if this is public or backend sql private data), you will probably want to control who can access it and since memcached doesn’t have any built-in authentication and doesn’t require any user or password we will have to use external protection methods like a iptables or other firewall rules for protection. Read the rest of this entry »