Getting started with Linux: the basics – part 2

In part 1 of our series about getting started with Linux, we learned how to download Linux, whether you should use the CLI or the GUI, how to get a SSH client, how to login to Linux and how to get help. In this post, you’ll learn how to know what type of Linux you are using and how to navigate the Linux file system.

How do I know what type of Linux I am using?

Because there are so many different types of Linux, you want to be sure you know what distribution and version you are using (for the sake of searching the right documentation on the Internet, if nothing else). Keep in mind a couple different commands to identify your Linux version.

The uname command shows the basic type of operating system you are using, like this:

david@debian:~$ uname -a
Linux debian 3.16.0-4-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 3.16.43-2 (2017-04-30) i686 GNU/Linux

And the hostnamectl command shows you the hostname of the Linux server as well as other system information, like the machine ID, virtualization hypervisor (if used), operating system and Linux kernel version. Here’s an example:

david@debian:~$ hostnamectl
Static hostname: debian
Icon name: computer-vm
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Beta for Docker Enterprise Edition with Kubernetes Integration Now Available

Beta for Docker EE with Kubernetes

Today we are excited to launch the public beta for Docker Enterprise Edition (Docker EE), our container management platform. First announced at DockerCon Europe, this release features Kubernetes integration as an optional orchestration solution, running side-by-side with Docker Swarm. With this solution, organizations will be able to deploy applications with either Swarm or fully-conformant Kubernetes while maintaining the consistent developer-to-IT workflow users have come to expect from Docker, especially when combined with the recent edge release of Docker for Mac with Kubernetes support. In addition to Kubernetes, this release includes enhancements to Swarm and to Docker Trusted Registry (DTR) which can be tested during the beta period.

Due to the high interest in this beta, license keys will be rolled out in batches over the next few weeks. Individuals who signed up for beta at www.docker.com/kubernetes will receive instructions on how to access this release and where to submit feedback. We also encourage our partners to use this time to test and validate their Docker and Kubernetes solutions against this release. Registrations will remain open throughout this beta testing period.

Explore the New Features

At DockerCon Europe, we demonstrated the management integration of Kubernetes within Docker EE. You can Continue reading

IETF 101

I will be at IETF 101 in London in March. If you have never been to an IETF before and live in the London area, this is a great chance to come see how the standardization process works, and even get involved for the long term.

Datacenters Brace For Spectre And Meltdown Impact

The Spectre and Meltdown speculative execution security vulnerabilities fall into the category of “low probability, but very high impact” potential exploits. The holes that Spectre and Meltdown open up into systems might enable any application to read the data of any other app, when running on the same server in the same pool of system memory – bypassing any and all security permissions. These potential exploits apply to every IT shop, from single-tenant servers potentially exposed to malware to apps running in a virtual machine (VM) framework in an enterprise datacenter to apps running in a multi-tenant public cloud instance.

Datacenters Brace For Spectre And Meltdown Impact was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Wide-area networks: What WANs are and where they’re headed

If it weren’t for wide-area networks, it wouldn’t be possible to create unified networks for organizations with far-flung locations, to telecommute, or to do online anything. But WANs do exist and have for decades, constantly evolving to carry more and more traffic faster as demands increase and technology becomes more powerful.What is a WAN? A WAN is a network that uses various links – private lines, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), virtual private networks (VPNs), wireless (cellular), the Internet – to connect smaller metropolitan and campus networks in diverse locations into a single, distributed network. The sites they connect could be a few miles apart or halfway around the globe. In an enterprise, the purposes of a WAN could include connecting branch offices or even individual remote workers with headquarters or the data center, in order to share corporate resources and communications.To read this article in full, please click here

Wide-area networks: What WANs are and where they’re headed

If it weren’t for wide-area networks, it wouldn’t be possible to create unified networks for organizations with far-flung locations, to telecommute, or to do online anything. But WANs do exist and have for decades, constantly evolving to carry more and more traffic faster as demands increase and technology becomes more powerful.What is a WAN? A WAN is a network that uses various links – private lines, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), virtual private networks (VPNs), wireless (cellular), the Internet – to connect smaller metropolitan and campus networks in diverse locations into a single, distributed network. The sites they connect could be a few miles apart or halfway around the globe. In an enterprise, the purposes of a WAN could include connecting branch offices or even individual remote workers with headquarters or the data center, in order to share corporate resources and communications.To read this article in full, please click here

Wide area networks: What WANs are and where they’re headed

If it weren’t for wide-area networks it wouldn’t be possible to create unified networks for organizations with far-flung locations, to telecommute, or to do online anything. But WANs do exist and have for decades, constantly evolving to carry more and more traffic faster as demands increase and technology becomes more powerful.What is a WAN? A WAN is a network that uses various links – private lines, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), virtual private networks (VPNs), wireless (cellular), the Internet – to connect smaller metropolitan and campus networks in diverse locations into a single, distributed network. The sites they connect could be a few miles apart or halfway around the globe. In an enterprise, the purposes of a WAN could include connecting branch offices or even individual remote workers with headquarters or the data center, in order to share corporate resources and communications.To read this article in full, please click here

Deprecating SPDY

Deprecating SPDY

Democratizing the Internet and making new features available to all Cloudflare customers is a core part of what we do. We're proud to be early adopters and have a long record of adopting new standards early, such as HTTP/2, as well as features that are experimental or not yet final, like TLS 1.3 and SPDY.

Participating in the Internet democracy occasionally means that ideas and technologies that were once popular or ubiquitous on the net lose their utility as newer technologies emerge. SPDY is one such technology. Several years ago, Google drafted a proprietary and experimental new protocol called SPDY. SPDY offered many performance improvements over the aging HTTP/1.1 standard and these improvements resulted in significantly faster page load times for real-world websites. Stemming from its success, SPDY became the starting point for HTTP/2 and, when the new HTTP standard was finalized, the SPDY experiment came to an end where it gradually fell into disuse.

As a result, we're announcing our intention to deprecate the use of SPDY for connections made to Cloudflare's edge by February 21st, 2018.

Remembering 2012

Five and a half years ago, when the majority of the web was unencrypted and web developers Continue reading

VMware NSX for vSphere 6.4 Eases Operations, Improves Application Security with Context

Summary: Generally available today, VMware NSX for vSphere 6.4 raises the bar for application security and planning, and introduces context-aware micro-segmentation

For those working in security, thinking and talking about the cyber threats in the world is a constant, a necessary evil. So, for a moment, let’s summon a better time to our memory. Remember when breaches didn’t keep us up at night? The threat of a breach didn’t hang over our heads with an associated cost of millions of dollars and the privacy of our users. In fact, it did, but they weren’t frequent or public enough to cause the awakening that they do today. We put up a wall at the perimeter to keep the bad guys out, and prayed.

OK, back to modern times. Today, we know the story is much different, for better and for worse. Breaches are more prevalent, but our defenses are more sophisticated and more importantly, they’re continuously evolving (just like the breaches). One major piece of this newer defense picture is micro-segmentation. With micro-segmentation, security policies traditionally only enforced at the perimeter are now brought down to the application. Micro-segmentation has gained massive traction and entered the mainstream, with most cloud Continue reading