FTP

# service vsftpd status
# service vsftpd start
# chkconfig vsftpd on
# chkconfig vsftpd --list

httpd

# ll /var/www/
# ln -s /var/ftp/pub /var/www/html/pub
# cat > /var/ftp/pub/index.html

Summary: My Red Hat System Administration I (RH124) training is now completed. I took the skills assessment before I took the training and RH124 was recommended. Although the course was not the right fit for my job, which is server administration, I have learned the basic of Linux.

The class concentrated more on GUI than command line. I wish it was the other way around. Nevertheless, the instructor provided as much command lines as he could. Pete Davis was the instructor. He has great knowledge of the subject as well as a sense of humor, which helped making the class engaging.

I definitely recommend this course for absolute beginner to Linux. It would had been perfect for me if I took this course about four months ago when I first started my job. At this point, I wish I had taken Red Hat System Administration II (RH135).

Yum

# yum list (get the list of .rpm, which stands for RPM Package Manager)
# yum search kernel (kernel is the name of the package)
# yum install kernel
# yum update kernel
# yum remove kernel

Network

# ip addr show eth0 (eth0 is the name of the network)
# more /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
# service network restart
# system-config-network
# ip route
# host visualgui.com
# dig visualgui.com

Users and Groups

# useradd donny
# passwd donny
# vipw (let’s one user edit at the same time)

Manage Files

# echo $PATH
# pwd (current path)
# ls /home/{dir1,dir2} (show more two directories)
# ln file1 file2 (link file 1 to file 2)
# ln -s file1 file2 (symbolic link)
# su – username (change user)
# cp -av /dir/to/copy /dir/destination

Permission

r (view content)
w (change the content)
x (requires r to execute the content)

rw-rw-rw-
rw-r–r–
umask 002

u+s (suid=4: file executes as the user that owns the file, not the user that ran the file
g+s (sgid=2: file executes as the group that owns the file
o+t (sticky=1: no effect)

Summary: The best day so far of the training. Picked up many useful information. Hope the next two days will be even better.

Introduced to Bash

Commands entered at the shell prompt have three basic parts:

# chmod +x gedit demo.txt
[command] [options] [arguments]

Command lines:

# pwd (path you’re currently in)
# history
//Using the tab key (“tab” “tab”) for completion
# scp filename user@ip-address:/ (copy file from local folder to virtual server)

Introduced to managing physical storage using the graphical interface
Learned to manage logical volumes
Introduced to monitoring system resources

Summary: Even though the topics were interesting, they aren’t related to my job.

As my wife and I are trying to refinance our mortgage loan, I decided to give Susana, our realtor who helped us purchased our house, a call to ask her for a few tips. Her phone had been shut off so I called her office. The frontdesk guy told me that Susana had passed away a few months ago. Cancer claimed her life.

The chill ran down my spine. I was shocked. After a year of house-hunting together, Susana became more than just our realtor. We considered her as a friend. She was a hard worker who never said no to us when we wanted to look at the houses. She was such a lovely lady with two adorable twin girls and a very nice husband.

Even after we purchased the house, we kept in touch and invited her family over for dinner every once in a while. I actually was a bit sad that we didn’t get to go look at houses with her anymore. Then the last two years had been crazy for us. All of the sudden, Susana is gone. Life is just way too short.

Install WordPress

wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar xfz latest.tar.gz
cp -r * ~/public_html/your/website/folder/

Change Permissions (rwx => 4 + 2 + 1 = 7)

For Directories:

find /path/to/your/directory/ -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;

For Files:

find /path/to/your/file/ -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

Permissions

chmod -R 755 directory
chmod -R 644 files

Remove files and directory (use carefully)

rm -rf YourDirectory

Change Owner

chown -R apache new_name //change entire directory

Rename Directory

mv {old} {new}

Database

mysql -u root -p //To access database
mysql> create database [database name];
mysql> show databases;
mysql> drop database [database name];

Today marks my first day at George Mason School of Law. I am excited and looking forward to make a huge change to the website.

Kara Lynn, a dear friend and former designer at Vassar, passed away last Friday after a long, heroic battling with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Kara was an awesome designer, a loving mother, a technologist and a fighter.

I met Kara through an interview for the web design position at Vassar College. At the time the group was made up of four women; therefore, one of the questions was, “How do you feel about working with four women?” Although I didn’t know if I said the right thing, but I replied without hesitation, “I love it.” Kara lid up a big, beautiful smile and that was the moment I knew I wanted to be part of the team.

On my first day at the job, I was assigned to create a welcome back homepage banner. I wanted to come up with something nice to make a good impression, but I was stuck and didn’t know what to do. I came to Kara and she immediately gathered a number of people in the office and we headed to the front building to make a photo shoot. Kara helped me cropped the photo from the waist down just to show feet walking into the building as a welcome back banner. The banner was not approved because it was showing some butts so we went back and cropped out the butts as well. That was when I began to learn about Kara’s sense of humor. Working with her and absorbing her elegant design helped me out tremendously. I had many fond memories of Kara. She was strong, independent, articulate and very artistic.

When she took her maternity leave to give birth to her adorable Aiden, Kara never returned to work even though everything in her office remained the way it was when she left. Later when I found out that she was diagnosed with ALS and her blog about that topic, I followed her writing. Her personal accounts, particularly on her daily struggles with everyday life, broke my heart. Sometimes her words almost put me to tears. She went through a lot and life didn’t even give her a break. She not only fought for her life, but also for those in similar situation. She raised the awareness of the disease and challenged insurance companies for speech-impairment remedy.

Rest in peace, Kara. You will always be missed.

Another colleague of mine had passed away. I didn’t realize that I hadn’t talk to him for weeks. Ever since we launched the new design, I basically lock myself in my office and focus on migrating the all contents to the new design. The news stopped me cold. The last time we were on the phone Fred asked me to help him set up some Macs for some faculty members. I agreed.

Fred was an IT for the School of Business, but he is a PC guy. Although I am not an expert, Fred was my go-to guy regarding to Mac. In return, Fred always responded to my requests as quickly as he could. In the School of Business, Fred was the PC and I am the Mac. On a more personally level, Fred was a jazz aficionado and like me Fred was also a Miles’s fan. I just found out that from another colleague that Fred had gone “In a Silent Way” a few weeks ago. Rest in peace, my man.

In just six months I had lost three people I had the pleasure working with. Witnessing the people around you just leave makes me think about life and death. It could just happen to anyone. It’s a sad reality, but it teaches me to not to worry too much about death. When it is time for me to go. I’ll go. While I am still here I want to make the best of it for the people around me, especially my lil Duke. He gives me the reason to live.

Although we only knew each other for a short period of time, you left a deep impression in me the very first time we met. You mesmerized me not only with your fantastic designs, but also your deep thoughts behind them. You drawn me in with your soft-spoken words, knowledge of the web and intelligent views on design.

Your purpose to become a designer is something I will never forget: “Life is depressing so I try to make things beautiful.” Your work speaks for itself. For me personally, what inspires me the most was your ability to strike the balance between simplicity and attention to details. I always refer back to your work when I need some design solutions.

Work aside, you were a very private, humble individual. I had learned a great deal from you: only talk when you have something to contribute. Thank you for your wonderful recommendation on LinkedIn. Come to think about it, I have a feeling it was your way of saying goodbye without letting me know what you were going through. I thank you whole-heartedly and may your soul rest in peace. You’re in a better place now and I am sure you’ll make things even more beautiful up there.

I got home from work around 6:15pm, but Dana and Duke weren’t home. After taking a shower, I could hear them in the living room. Dana handed Duke over to me to give him a bath so she could cook some dinner. I fed him a bowl full of porridge and hang out with him while Dana was still cooking.

I peeped into the kitchen and there were Vietnamese salad, mussels and lobster tails. I asked her what is the special occasion? She replied, “It’s our anniversary.” Holy crap, I totally forgot about it. I popped open a bottle of white wine, the one that I brought to her place the first time she invited me over for dinner. I was so nervous that I dropped the bottle on the floor and we had to clean it up.

Anyway dinner was delicious. We had to rush a bit because Cu Dao was sleepy and fussy. Dana put him to bed so I just kick back and watched some American Idol. Crystal Bowersox dominated the show and she’ll win for sure. Then Glee came on. I was expecting more of Lady Gaga covers, but it was not the case. The show was still enjoyable though.

After the show, I clean up the table and put the dishes into the machine. Dana came down and now we’re sharing a chocolate mousse and a cup of tea while I quickly put this post together before the night end.