Managing process accounting on Linux

Process accounting is a method of recording and summarizing commands and processes. It's an option on Linux systems, but you have to enable it and use a particular command to view the details collected. This post covers the commands involved and offers some suggestions on making the views even more useful.To start, understand that process accounting is different than what you see when running the ps command. It shows details on commands that have completed –- not those that are currently running. It also shows a lot more details than you would see by looking at your users' command history files and keeps all the collected data in a single file on the system.To read this article in full, please click here

IBM details next-gen POWER10 processor

IBM on Monday took the wraps off its latest POWER RISC CPU family, optimized for enterprise hybrid-cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) inferencing, along with a number of other improvements.Power is the last of the Unix processors from the 1990s, when Sun Microsystems, HP, SGI, and IBM all had competing Unixes and RISC processors to go with them. Unix gave way to Linux and RISC gave way to x86, but IBM holds on.This is IBM's first 7-nanometer processor, and IBM claims it will deliver an up-to-three-times improvement in capacity and processor energy efficiency within the same power envelope as its POWER9 predecessor. The processor comes in a 15-core design (actually 16-cores but one is not used) and allows for single or dual chip models, so IBM can put two processors in the same form factor. Each core can have up to eight threads, and each socket supports up to 4TB of memory.To read this article in full, please click here

Avaya repositions itself as cloud provider for unified communications

Unified communications vendor Avaya is rebranding its entire communications portfolio under the Avaya OneCloud name, effectively positioning itself as a cloud services provider.Avaya OneCloud spans the entire Avaya product line, which is focused on contact-center-as-a-service (CCaaS), unified-communications-as-a-service (UCaaS), and communications-platform-as-a-service (CPaaS). Avaya offers a range of operational, consumption and commercial models that can be deployed on-premises as well as through Avaya's private and public cloud offerings."Global organizations increasingly rely on us as they adapt to a work-from-anywhere world, and we are delivering our offerings in a more impactful way," said Simon Harrison, Avaya senior vice president and chief marketing officer, in a statement. "Avaya OneCloud enables them to consume and deploy apps in the way they want, to achieve their ambitions and build their brands through improved experiences."To read this article in full, please click here

Unsolicited Multicast: Random Thoughts on the LFN White Paper

A short while back, the Linux Foundation (Networking), or LFN, published a white paper about the open source networking ecosystem. Rather than review the paper, or try to find a single theme, I decided to just write down “random thoughts” as I read through it. This is the (rather experimental) result.

The paper lists five goals of the project which can be reduced to three: reducing costs, increasing operator’s control over the network, and increasing security (by increasing code inspection). One interesting bit is the pairing of cost reduction with increasing control. Increasing control over a network generally means treating it less like an opaque box and more like a disaggregated set of components, each of which can be tuned in some way to improve the fit between network services, network performance, and business requirements. The less a network is an opaque box, however, the more time and effort required to manage it. This only makes sense—tuning a network to perform better requires time and talent, both of which cost money.

The offsetting point here is disaggregation and using open source can save money—although in my experience it never does. Again, running disaggregated software and hardware requires time and talent, Continue reading

Amazon Braket lets customers try out quantum computing

AWS has announced the availability of a new service that lets customers tap into and experiment with quantum computing simulators and access quantum hardware from D-Wave, IonQ, and Rigetti.The managed service, Amazon Braket, offers customers a development environment where they can explore and build quantum algorithms, test them on quantum circuit simulators, and run them on different quantum hardware technologies, AWS said in a statement about the service. The Braket service includes Jupyter notebooks that come pre-installed with the Amazon Braket SDK and example tutorials.To read this article in full, please click here

Deploying a Minecraft Docker Server to the cloud

One of the simplest examples that people have used over the years of demoing Docker is quickly standing up and running a Minecraft server. This shows the power of using Docker and has a pretty practical application!

Recently I wanted to set up a server but I wanted to persist one and as I have given away my last raspberry pi I needed to find a new way to do this. I decided that I would have a go at running this in Azure using the $200 free credits you get in your first month.

The first thing I decided to do was to check out the existing Docker Images for Minecraft servers to see if there were any that looked good to use, to do this I went to Docker Hub and searched for minecraft:

I liked the look of minecraft-server repo, so I clicked through to have a look at the image and link through to the Github repo.

To start I decide to just test out running this locally on my machine with the ‘simple get started’ Docker Run command:

$ docker run -d -p 25565:25565 --name mc -e EULA=TRUE
 itzg/minecraft-server

In the Docker Desktop Dashboard, I Continue reading

Tech Bytes: Protecting Remote Workers With NetMotion’s Software-Defined Perimeter (Sponsored)

Today’s Tech Bytes podcast examines the challenge of securing remote workers with sponsor is NetMotion. We explore the difficulties of getting visibility into what remote workers are up to, and striking a balance between security of the organization and employee privacy. Our guest is Joel Windels, Chief Marketing Officer at NetMotion.

The post Tech Bytes: Protecting Remote Workers With NetMotion’s Software-Defined Perimeter (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

The Week in Internet News: Smart Phones for Online Education

More phones, more access: Chinese smartphone major Xiaomi has announced that its Indian subsidiary will distribute 2,500 phone handsets to support online education of students who are most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, India Times reports. Teach for India says one smart phone can support the education of up to seven children, if they use the device in shifts.

Tracking the pandemic: The U.K. has launched a limited trial of a COVID-19 tracking app, the BBC reports. The app, which will be available on the Apple and Google online stores, will include an alert system that informs users of the coronavirus risk level close to their home. It also has a QR barcode scanner, allowing users to check in when they visit a venue and be told if others there later tested positive.

Weird pandemic effects: Parent company Facebook is blaming COVID-19 for a lapse in its ability to moderate nudity and other content on Instagram, The Independent writes. Facebook sent content reviewers home in March due to COVID-19, and those employees didn’t have adequate work-from-home systems. Facebook relies “heavily” on human intervention to remove offending content, the company said.

Faking it: One guy decided he’s had too many Continue reading

Election Cybersecurity: Preparing for the 2020 U.S. Elections.

Election Cybersecurity: Preparing for the 2020 U.S. Elections.

At Cloudflare, our mission is to help build a better Internet. As we look to the upcoming 2020 U.S. elections, we are reminded that having the Internet be trusted, secure, reliable, and accessible for campaigns and citizens alike is critical to our democracy. We rely on the Internet to share and discover pertinent information such as how to register to vote, find polling locations, or learn more about candidates.

Due to the spread of COVID-19, we are seeing a number of election environments shift online, to varying degrees, with political parties conducting virtual fundraisers, campaigns moving town halls to online platforms and election officials using online forms to facilitate voting by mail. As the 2020 U.S. elections approach, we want to ensure that players in the election space have the tools they need to stay online to promote trust and confidence in the democratic system.

We’re keeping an eye on how this shift to online activities affect cyberattacks. From April to June 2020, for example, we saw a trend of increasing DDoS attacks, with double the amount of L3/4 attacks observed over our network compared to the first three months of 2020. In the election space, we are Continue reading

How the network can support zero trust

Simply stated, zero trust calls for verifying every user and device that tries to access the network and enforcing strict access-control and identity management that limits authorized users to accessing only those resources they need to do their jobs.Zero trust is an architecture, so there are many potential solutions available, but this is a look at those that fit in the realm of networking.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Least privilege One broad principle of zero trust is least privilege, which is granting individuals access to just enough resources to carry out their jobs and nothing more. One way to accomplish this is network segmentation, which breaks the network into unconnected sections based on authentication, trust, user role, and topology. If implemented effectively, it can isolate a host on a segment and minimize its lateral or east–west communications, thereby limiting the "blast radius" of collateral damage if a host is compromised. Because hosts and applications can reach only the limited resources they are authorized to access, segmentation prevents attackers from gaining a foothold into the rest of the network.To read this article in full, please click here

How to make sure data that should be backed up gets backed up

There is no sadder moment in the backup world than finding out the file or database you need to restore has never been backed up. Understanding how systems, directories, and databases are included in the backup system is the key to making sure this never happens to you.The first step toward this goal is making sure that servers and services you want backed up are registered with your backup-and-recovery system.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] For example, if you start using a new SaaS such as Salesforce, no backup system will automatically notice that addition and start backing it up for you. If you are fully virtualized on VMware, the systems will automatically notice if you add a new node to the configuration. But if you start using Hyper-V or KVM, no backup system will automatically notice there is a new hypervisor in the data center and start backing it up. And of course your backup system will not notice you installed a new physical server.To read this article in full, please click here

How the network can support zero trust

Simply stated, zero trust calls for verifying every user and device that tries to access the network and enforcing strict access-control and identity management that limits authorized users to accessing only those resources they need to do their jobs.Zero trust is an architecture, so there are many potential solutions available, but this is a look at those that fit in the realm of networking.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Least privilege One broad principle of zero trust is least privilege, which is granting individuals access to just enough resources to carry out their jobs and nothing more. One way to accomplish this is network segmentation, which breaks the network into unconnected sections based on authentication, trust, user role, and topology. If implemented effectively, it can isolate a host on a segment and minimize its lateral or east–west communications, thereby limiting the "blast radius" of collateral damage if a host is compromised. Because hosts and applications can reach only the limited resources they are authorized to access, segmentation prevents attackers from gaining a foothold into the rest of the network.To read this article in full, please click here

How to make sure data that should be backed up gets backed up

There is no sadder moment in the backup world than finding out the file or database you need to restore has never been backed up. Understanding how systems, directories, and databases are included in the backup system is the key to making sure this never happens to you.The first step toward this goal is making sure that servers and services you want backed up are registered with your backup-and-recovery system.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] For example, if you start using a new SaaS such as Salesforce, no backup system will automatically notice that addition and start backing it up for you. If you are fully virtualized on VMware, the systems will automatically notice if you add a new node to the configuration. But if you start using Hyper-V or KVM, no backup system will automatically notice there is a new hypervisor in the data center and start backing it up. And of course your backup system will not notice you installed a new physical server.To read this article in full, please click here

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