Back when our team was dealing with operations, optimization and scalability at our previous company, we had our fair share of troubleshooting poorly performing applications and infrastructures of various sizes, often large (think CNN or the World Bank). Tight deadlines, “exotic” technical stacks and lack of information usually made for memorable experiences.

The cause of the issues was rarely obvious: here are a few things we usually got started with.

Read the full thing at http://devo.ps/blog/2013/03/06/troubleshooting-5minutes-on-a-yet-unknown-box.html

For Linux users, the command line is a celebrated part of our entire experience. Unlike other popular operating systems, where the command line is a scary proposition for all but the most experienced veterans, in the Linux community, command-line use is encouraged. Often the command line can provide a more elegant and efficient solution when compared to doing a similar task with a graphical user interface.

Read the full thing at http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/python-scripts-replacement-bash-utility-scripts

This document is a collection of Unix/Linux/BSD commands and tasks which are useful for IT work or for advanced users. This is a practical guide with concise explanations, however the reader is supposed to know what s/he is doing.

Read the full thing at http://cb.vu/unixtoolbox.xhtml

This is the fourth part of the Bash One-Liners Explained article series. In this part I'll teach you how to work with bash history. I'll use only the best bash practices, various bash idioms and tricks. I want to illustrate how to get various tasks done with just bash built-in commands and bash programming language constructs.

I'll break this part into several sub-parts as it's very tiring to write long articles, and I'd rather publish many short articles and make quick progress.

Read the full thing at http://www.catonmat.net/blog/bash-one-liners-explained-part-four/

We’re a performance company, and performance and scalability go hand in hand. Better scalability results in more consistent performance and at LogNormal, we like pushing our hardware as far as it will go.

Today’s post is about some of the infrastructure we use and how we tune it to handle a large number of requests.

We have separate components of our software stack to handle different tasks. In this post I’ll only cover the parts that make up our beacon collection component and how we tune it. Only a few of the tuning points are specific to this component.

Read the full thing at http://www.lognormal.com/blog/2012/09/27/linux-tcpip-tuning/

This tutorial explains how you can manage multiple MySQL servers from one phpMyAdmin installation. For security reasons, communication between phpMyAdmin and any remote MySQL server is using SSL encryption (this is not necessary for a local MySQL server since communication between phpMyAdmin and MySQL is not leaving the server). phpMyAdmin is a free software tool written in PHP, intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the World Wide Web. phpMyAdmin supports a wide range of operations with MySQL.

Read the full thing at http://www.howtoforge.com/managing-multiple-mysql-servers-from-one-phpmyadmin-installation-using-ssl-encryption

This is the second part of the Bash One-Liners Explained article series. In this part I'll show you how to do various string manipulations with bash. I'll use only the best bash practices, various bash idioms and tricks. I want to illustrate how to get various tasks done with just bash built-in commands and bash programming language constructs.

Read the full thing at http://www.catonmat.net/blog/bash-one-liners-explained-part-two/

This post is on SSH tunneling, or as I like to call it 'Poor Man's VPN'. Contrary to the sysadmin's popular belief, SSH tunneling actually can be very valuable use for both techies and home users. I say contrary to popular belief because 'reverse tunneling' and tunneling http traffic through SSH can bypass firewalls and content filters. But this article isn't about how to violate your corporate internet use policy, it's about how to create SSH tunnels to make your life just a little bit easier.

Read the full thing at http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/ssh-tunneling-poor-techies-vpn

People ask me why on Earth would I subject myself to such dreadful text editor as vim. With it’s weird mode system, nonstandard keyboard shortcuts and all kinds of strange quirks it is not what you would call a user-friendly piece of software. Most users new to this particular editor hit a brick wall at step one: entering text. When you open vim and try to type into it will do strange things. It will mostly beep at you, or display some messages in the status bar but not type. Unless of course you happen to hit a vovel lie a or i or o, in which case it will suddenly come alive and let you type.

Read the full thing at http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2012/03/21/why-vim/

Screen is a great tool, and highly recommended, tool for any Linux user. It provides a Terminal environment that can withstand network disconnects, random computer restarts, power outages at home and more. With screen you can be assured that if PuTTY, or whatever SSH Client you use, closes you will almost never lose your work. Sadly this is not true for a server restart, as far as I'm aware, but it still provides amazing possibilities. In this wiki you'll find instructions for installation and customization that will not only enhance screen for the best, but will also make it more enjoyable to use. If you're like me, once you start to use screen you'll never go back to mundane old terminal.

Read the full thing at http://www.linuxforum.com/content.php/131-Screen-The-Path-For-Beginners