System Administration Archives

Apache Solr Linux install

17 October 2020 by Korbin Brown

Apache Solr is open source search software. It’s capable of being implemented as an enterprise-level search engine thanks to its high scalability, advanced indexing, fast queries, and ability to integrate with a large variety of applications. It’s capable of tackling big data and also has high availability with its load balancing and failover configurations.

The platform is written in Java and can be installed on Linux systems. In this guide, we’ll show the step by step instructions for installing Apache Solr on some of the most popular Linux distros, including Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, and Red Hat.

In this tutorial you will learn:

How to install Apache Solr on Debian based systems
How to install Apache Solr on Red Hat based systems
Initial configuration of Apache Solr

Apache Solr installed on Linux

Linux cups tutorial for beginners

15 October 2020 by Korbin Brown

CUPS is a printing system used on many different Linux distributions. Its use is very widespread, as it has become the standard print manager on the majority of popular Linux distros. It acts as a print spooler, scheduler, print job manager, and can store information for numerous local or network printers.

In this guide, we’ll introduce you to CUPS on Linux, with basic information like commands, accessing its web interface, default port, how to add a printer, testing, and starting and stopping the service. Various systems may implement CUPS differently or put their own spin on it, but CUPS works mostly the same on any distro and these instructions will likely apply to any system that utilizes CUPS.

In this tutorial you will learn:

How to use the CUPS web interface
How to add a printer in CUPS
Various CUPS commands
How to control the CUPS service

An introduction to CUPS on Linux

Manjaro Linux kernel headers installation

14 October 2020 by Korbin Brown

A Linux kernel is the core of a Linux distribution and consists of three things: the kernel itself, the kernel’s headers, and the kernel’s extra modules. The kernel headers are used to define device interfaces. For example, they can be used to compile the module that controls your computer’s video card and driver.

The main reason you may find yourself needing to install kernel headers is if you are compiling kernel modules and need Linux to access and communicate with hardware as intended. Sometimes device drivers may require you to update the kernel headers on your system to function properly. Other times, there may be compatibility issues with new versions and you’ll need to roll back an update. The process for doing this can vary on each distribution, but in this guide we’ll be going over the steps specifically for Manjaro Linux. Continue reading to find out how to install kernel headers, check the version of installed kernel headers, and switch between kernel header versions on Manjaro.

In this tutorial you will learn:

Linux API headers vs kernel headers
Install or update kernel headers
Switch between kernel header versions

Introduction to Grub Rescue

13 October 2020 by Korbin Brown

Grub is a boot loader for many Linux distributions which basically tells your system where it can find installed operating system(s) on one or more hard drives. Your PC needs this information in order to boot into your Linux distro successfully.

When powering on your PC, Grub begins to look for installed operating systems. If it has trouble finding one or if it can’t load part of its config, you’ll be brought to the Grub Rescue command line interface that allows you to repair the boot loader.

In this guide, we’ll show how Grub Rescue works, along with the commands you’ll need in order to repair a broken boot loader and get back into your Linux install.

NOTE
If you experience a no such partition error, we have a separate guide for how to fix grub error: no such partition grub rescue

In this tutorial you will learn:

What are the Grub files?
How to repair Grub
What to do if Grub is completely broken

Grub rescue on a Linux system

How to install XAMPP on Ubuntu Linux

13 October 2020 by Korbin Brown

Hosting a website on a Linux system usually involves multiple software packages that operate together to deliver a web browsing experience to potential viewers. For example, it’s common for PHP to dynamically render web content but retrieve data from a database. These are two separate components and they must both be installed to present a website as intended.

XAMPP is a software stack that can run on Ubuntu Linux and make your life a little easier when it comes to web hosting. XAMPP stands for cross-platform (X), Apache (A), MariaDB (M), PHP (P), and Perl (P). These are all common components used in web hosting, and combining them into a single installation makes the initial setup less complicated. XAMPP also comes with Bitnami, which allows you to install content managements systems, such as WordPress, as well as other apps on top of your XAMPP installation if you choose.

In this guide, we’ll cover the installation of XAMPP on Ubuntu Linux. Follow along with our step by step instructions to get it setup on your own system.

In this tutorial you will learn:

How to install XAMPP on Ubuntu Linux
How to manage your XAMPP installation

Installing XAMPP on Ubuntu Linux

BackupPC tutorial on Linux

13 October 2020 by Korbin Brown

BackupPC is a free and versatile backup suite that can run on Linux systems and supports several protocols like NFS, SSH, SMB, and rsync. It can be used to backup numerous Linux, Mac, and Windows machines.

It has a lot of nice features like automatic backups and a web interface as its control panel. It also uses file compression and hard links to try and minimize the amount of space that your backups consume. Thus if a file is present on multiple machines, BackupPC is smart enough to only store a single copy of that file in the backup.

In this guide, we’ll show the step by step instructions for installing BackupPC on popular Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Debian, and CentOS. We’ll also cover some initial configuration so you can understand how to setup backup tasks within the program.

In this tutorial you will learn:

How to install BackupPC on various Linux distros
Initial configuration of BackupPC

BackupPC installed on Linux

Oracle Linux running GNOME desktop environment

Oracle Linux Download

13 October 2020 by Korbin Brown

Oracle Linux is an enterprise level distro based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. You’ll find it to be in the same league as most other enterprise focused distributions, such as SUSE Linux. For other most popular Linux distributions please visit our dedicated linux download page.

As you might expect, Oracle Linux has been developed to integrate well with other Oracle products. This makes it a solid choice for businesses that have invested in other Oracle software or hardware, including their popular database applications. It features the “Oracle Unbreakable Kernel” which Oracle touts as highly stable and reliable.

Following in RHEL’s footsteps, Oracle Linux comes with the GNOME desktop environment by default. It’s free to install and use as you please, but has optional support available for those that wish to subscribe. This is a departure from RHEL’s model that makes a subscription necessary to use their OS.

Clear Linux Download

13 October 2020 by Korbin Brown

Clear Linux is Intel’s entry into the Linux space. It’s a free and open source distro that Intel has developed for maximum performance. For other most popular Linux distributions please visit our dedicated linux download page.

Unsurprisingly, Clear Linux has been optimized to perform very well on Intel hardware. Being developed by a hardware giant means that the operating system can undergo improvements that more community driven Linux distributions may be likely to neglect.

Clearing memory cache and using free command to show before and after result

Clear cache on Linux

11 October 2020 by Korbin Brown

When files and system utilities are used by a Linux system, they’re temporarily stored in random access memory (RAM), which makes them much quicker to access. This is a good thing, since frequently accessed information can be quickly recalled, which ultimately makes your system perform faster.

The operating system determines how long to keep files cached in memory, but Linux also gives the user the ability to clear the cache manually. You normally will never need to do this, although there are edge situations where it can come in handy.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to clear the memory cache on Linux by clearing PageCache, dentries, and inodes from the command line.

In this tutorial you will learn:

What is PageCache, dentry, and inode cache?
How to clear cache

Clearing memory cache and using free command to show before and after result

Zip folder in Linux

10 October 2020 by Korbin Brown

If you have a folder that’s full of files and need to send it to someone or otherwise store it efficiently, archiving the folder into a .zip file is a good way to do it. Of course, on Linux systems, it’s probably more common to come across compressed tar files, but zip archives are still ubiquitous and a perfectly viable choice.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to compress (or “zip”) a folder on all major Linux distributions. We’ll be covering the steps for doing so on the command line as well as from the GNOME and KDE graphical desktop environments. Choose whichever method you find most appropriate when creating your zip file.

In this tutorial you will learn:

How to zip a folder from Linux command line
How to zip a folder from GNOME GUI
How to zip a folder from KDE GUI

Zip folder in Linux

Checking the Node.js version and help menu on Linux

How to install Node.js on Linux

10 October 2020 by Korbin Brown

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that is used for hosting websites. It offers users the ability to write websites in JavaScript whose code executes on the server instead of a client’s browser.

To host a website with Node.js on a Linux system, you need to download and configure the Node.js software. Node.js is available for installation on any major Linux distro, although the commands to install it may differ. Most users will also wish to install npm, the package manager for Node.js and JavaScript, when they install Node.js.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to install Node.js from the command line on various Linux distributions so you can get started hosting your JavaScript based website. We’ll also include instructions for installing npm.

In this tutorial you will learn:

How to install Node.js on major Linux distros

Checking the Node.js version and help menu on Linux

How to stress test your CPU on Linux

7 October 2020 by Justin Chapin

There are many reasons why you may want to stress test the CPU on your Linux system. You may want to see how your operating system and hardware perform when you are at full CPU utilization in order to spot software bugs or hardware failures. Alternatively, you may want to generate a lot of heat fast to troubleshoot a temperature-related issue with your machine; maximizing the CPU utilization will do that. Whatever the reason, there is a fast and easy way to accomplish that goal.