...this is my first foray into Linux I had no idea what to write about in relation to being a Unix Administration. After looking at the topics I chose “configuration of users, group, and file/directory permissions for several reasons. The first is that I did spend some time many years ago setting up an active directory infrastructure so I am hoping to relate how to set up users in Linux to mirror that structure; if that is at all possible. The second reason is that one of the first thing an server administrator would have to do after booting and loading a file system would be to define permissions’ to allow people to get access to either the application or data on the server. I suspect that a lot of thought would have to be put into doing this, if it is not done correctly it will be ad hoc or have to be redone multiple times to get it right. Having to redo it might require all of the users to lose access while it is being redone. I think explaining how to set up the file/directory permissions relating to the access capabilities of the user/groups will also be interesting to learn. Finally the other reason that I chose this topic is that it has the most words so I in my thinking if it took that long to describe the topic hopefully there will be enough material to fill up a research paper. My goal in doing the research is to gain an understanding on these topics and pass that information on to anyone that is as clueless as I currently am on Linux. I will accomplish this by...
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...There a numerous security measures that are available for administrators of Linux systems. This paper will introduce and briefly explain three that are useful in the constant fight to keep a system safe and secure for users. Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is a security feature that was developed by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States of America. As the agency itself states, “The National Security Agency has long been involved with the computer security research community in investigating a wide range of computer security topics including operating system security” (Security-Enhanced Linux - NSA/CSS. 2009). As long proponents of computer security, the NSA worked to develop SELinux. SELinux is an application of the FLASK architecture, which provides Mandatory Access Control (MAC) as part of the operating system kernel. According to a paper presented at the 2001 Ottowa Linux Symposium, “The security policy decision logic has been encapsulated into a new kernel component called the Security Server (SS)” (Loscocco and Smalley. 2001), this allows the kernel to enforce policy decisions without needing direct access to the policy itself. SElinux provides MAC measures to secure data, files, directories files, network interfaces, and all other components of a Linux operating system. SELinux is designed to address many security holes in a computer system including “...preventing processes from reading data and programs, tampering with data and programs, bypassing...
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...Assignment 1.1 Below is a free essay on "Itt Tech It250 Unit 1" from Anti Essays, your source for free research papers, essays, and term paper examples. 1. What did Richard Stallman mean when he stated that GNU was a free operating system? What Richard Stallman meant by stating that GNU was a free operating system is that it was a free software that users had the freedom to distribute and change the product. 2. Describe the relationship between Linux and the GNU Project. The way that Linux and the GNU Project are related by them both being free software based. Also the GNU operating system today uses complete Linux binary compatibility. 3. List and describe in detail four advantages of Linux. The four advantages of Linux include: a) Affordability, Linux has open source software,meaning that there are no license fees. b) Portability, Linux is a generic operating system that can run on different types of operating systems from different companies. c) Security because it is logical based and everything is file based. d) Multiple users, it can run multiple tasks with many different users at the same time. 4. List three examples of different hardware platforms onto which Linux has been ported. Some examples of different hardware platforms that Linux was ported are Compaq's Alpha-based machines, MIPS-based machines, and Motorola's 68K- based machines. 5. What are the minimum system requirements for Fedora 15 with the GUI installed? The minimum system requirements...
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...department; software application acquisition is an area that might lead to a big money savings. Even in financially difficulties times, businesses want or need to improve their application environment. Sometimes it might even be necessary to invest in the IT infrastructure for long-term savings, which may result in the company not needing to close their doors. But many business owners or CEO’s will question if open source software is ready for business. This research paper intends to answer this question. The best reason to use open source software in a business environment is cost savings. This gives the business freedom to use software and change the source code in other words, modify how the software application is used, as it is needed. Open source removes the need for dependence on single vendor solutions and it provides very high quality applications and very good support. To understand open source software it is important to know what open source is, and what the meaning of open source software is. This research paper will also show where open source came from; the history of open source software. In the beginning software programmers and hardware manufactures exchanged the source code to give everyone the chance to improve the code and build up on it. In the mid 1980’s Richard Stallman started the Free Software Foundation, an organization that developed the “GNU's Not Unix” (GNU) system, an operation system that is compatible with the UNIX system. At this time...
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...select few believe otherwise. Many programmers and computer enthusiasts believe Linux to be a far more efficient and usable system because of its flexibility and efficient code. Even so, among the common users, Linux is probably the least known and most underused computer system in the world. The objective of this paper is to determine which system truly is better for users both common and adept. This research compares both operating systems with each other as to determine which is more customizable, easier use, and faster to run. To provide an objective and thorough comparison, this paper looks at key features present in each operating system. After assessing each system, it can be concluded that, although Windows is definitely more widely used than Linux, Linux is the better operating system because of its usability, open source code, and efficient language. However, before analyzing the necessary components, ample background for each operating system must first be provided. The main objective of Windows was "...to provide a personal computing environment for the common user," (Alampay) the common user being people who don't have in-depth knowledge in computer technology (i.e. Programmers, system analysts, etc.). This operating system was built using the corporate model (Microsoft) and therefore has a closed source code to protect their system from their competitors. The goal of Linux, on the other hand, was to provide an open source version of UNIX, a very prominent...
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...Elsevier B.V. Linux vs. Windows: A Comparison of Application and Platform Innovation Incentives for Open Source and Proprietary Software Platforms Nicholas Economides and Evangelos Katsamakas ABSTRACT The chapter analyzes and compares the investment incentives of platform and application developers for Linux and Windows. We find that the level of investment in applications is larger when the operating system is open source rather than proprietary. The comparison of the levels of investment in the operating systems depends, among others, on reputation effects and the number of developers. The chapter also develops a short case study comparing Windows and Linux and identifies new directions for open source software research. Keywords: Open Source Software, operating systems, technology platforms, Linux, innovation incentives. JEL Classification: L 10, L86, L3 1. 10.1 INTRODUCTION Open source software is an emerging type of software that may fundamentally affect the business and economic features of the software industry. Linux, an open source operating system, has been the prominent example of the potential of the open source movement, competing against Microsoft Windows, the incumbent operating system. 208 Nicholas Economides and Evangelos Katsamkas This chapter analyzes the incentives to invest in application software and an operating system under two different software ecosystems: one based on an open source operating system, such as Linux, and the other based...
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...| Linux and Windows Device Support | 6-3 Short Paper Submission | | By Lauren K Homa | 7/10/2013 | | It is true that the internet hosts an abundance of support websites, forums, links and other discussions regarding Linux and Windows device support. It would seem that this topic has been highly debated for some time as to whose support is best. In my own research, I have found that responses and web sources tend to be biased towards one OS or another based on personal experiences and preferences depending on the task that the system is being used for. I have found one non-subjective difference between Windows and Linux that could help get to the bottom of the discussion: When it comes to Windows, “Microsoft writes generic drivers to help ensure users can get up and running, then 3rd party supplied drivers can be installed to optimize performance. With Linux, drivers are all included with the Linux kernel, and devices are detected and the appropriate drivers are then activated on the fly. There are no 3rd parties to contact for drivers (unless a proprietary driver is needed, in which it has to be manually installed, similar to Windows.” (Clay, 2013) This offers some benefits and costs to each system. With Windows being more prevalent, it’s evident that Microsoft makes an effort to ensure that software is compatible and available with all their hardware drives and devices, and that resources can be readily available to customers if needed. With Microsoft...
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...There are different types of Linux Security Technologies. Discretionary Access Control, SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux), chroot jail, and iptables are just a few. This paper is only going to discuss the latter three. Discretionary Access Control is the more traditional, however; DAC is not as secure and will not be discussed here.1 The U.S National Security Agency (NSA) is the organization behind the creation of SELinux. The reason the NSA is involved in this project is because this organization is responsible for carrying out the research and advanced development of technologies needed to enable NSA to provide the solutions, products, and services to achieve Information Assurance for information infrastructures critical to U.S. National Security interests. The NSA implemented a Mandatory Access control within the Linux Kernel. This MAC is named Flask.2 There are three main policies that SELinux uses to apply MAC. There is the Targeted, where the MAC controls will only be used for a specific process or processes, there is the Multilevel Security protection, and the Strict. The strict puts MAC controls to all processes. The targeted is not as secure as the strict, however; the targeted is easier to maintain. If one uses the strict, the administrator will have to customize the policy. Failure to do so could cause other users a significant problem in performing his or her assigned duties. 3 The main reason the MAC has been created is to help prevent security...
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...| UNIX Performance Monitoring | My Research Paper | Student: Dwayne Blanchard Instructor: Professor Cliff KrahenbillAdvanced UNIX AdministrationMarch 3, 2012 | | | | | | The topic of my research paper will be on UNIX performance monitoring. The reason for choosing this topic is for personal understanding on how much UNIX performance monitoring differs from the monitoring of Windows based computers. This research paper is not to compare the two systems but to gain an understanding of how UNIX monitors performance. I don’t have any personal experience with working with UNIX systems, but as always eager to gain insight of different operating systems. The first thing I would like to discover is some of the common performance problems encountered caused by software, hardware and the combination of the two, the different terminologies associated with the processes via hardware or software, and finally what different utilities are used for monitoring these problems. We all know that UNIX has been around since the early 1970’s and the developments of performance tools have been around for a long time to enable system administrators in tuning systems for optimal performance. Operating systems performance problems normally involves process management, memory management, and scheduling. The object of performance on UNIX based systems is to determine the amount of time the operating system spends during scheduling...
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...Week 4 Individual Paper: Operating Systems Analysis Paper POS/355 November 7, 2011 Jeff Rugg Introduction The operating system, commonly known as OS, is the brain or the center of all computer systems. It controls the input/output and controls various tasks of the hardware. Apart from serving as a go-between for application programs and the hardware of the computer, the OS also consists of information and programs while providing general services to make sure that several software applications can operate accordingly. Operating systems can be found in almost any type of a computer device such as personal computers, supercomputers, cellular telephones, and video game consoles as stated by Linux Systems (2011). As the research was being conducted for this paper, it raised a question whether the internet uses the operating system? It proved to be a challenge to actually pin point the most common operating systems on the Internet, but as the research continued, it was obvious that these three, Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux are considered to be the most common operating systems used on the Internet today. Background of each Operating System Windows Privately owned operating systems, Microsoft Windows is generally used on personal computers and as of today, the most commonly used version is Windows XP with the new version of Windows 7 for personal computers and Windows Server 2008 R2 for servers is entering the market. Mac OS X Mac OS X is a graphical operating...
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...WHITE PAPER MICROSOFT WINDOWS SERVER VS. RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX Costs of Acquisition and Support – A Comparison August 2005 PREPARED FOR Microsoft TABLE OF CONTENTS Main Findings.................................................... 1 Executive Summary ......................................... 2 Analysis ............................................................. 2 License and Subscription Considerations Support Considerations The Total Solution Viewpoint 2 3 6 Main Findings 1. Microsoft’s Windows Server 2003 enterprise license and support costs are competitive with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. 2. The two companies’ different approaches to enterprise licensing and support, and the fact that investments of this magnitude tend to involve longer-term commitments, means that the best pricing comparisons should be based on a period of ownership (three to six years), rather than on just initial acquisition charges. 3. Support is integral to both companies’ solutions and Microsoft’s separate support and license fee structures, in contrast with Red Hat's combined subscription and support offerings, can give a Microsoft solution a significant pricing advantage over a Red Hat solution. In Review ........................................................... 7 Major Findings Other Findings 7 7 Appendix –Modeling Assumptions................. 8 General Operating System Licensing and Subscription Pricing Support Server Hardware 8 8 9 9 10 Chart 1 compares the cumulative...
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...Research Assignment 1 IT 302 Linux System Administration January 21, 2013 The purpose of this paper is to secure UNIX/Linux operating systems from unscrupulous people. It shall be focused on SELinux, chroot jail, and iptables. Each of the three focus areas will be detailed, with specific interest in the following. What organization is behind it and reason entity is involved. How each technology changes the operating system to enforce security, and if the security measure can be easily bypassed. And finally, describe the types of threats each of the technologies is designed to eliminate. Since no two UNIX-based operating system builds are exactly alike, it is important to note that each build may have its own inherent security flaws. SELinux was developed by The United States National Security Agency (NSA). The first version was made available to the open source development community under the GNU GPL on December 22, 2000. The software merged into the mainline Linux kernel 2.6.0-test3, released on 8 August 2003. Other significant contributors include Network Associates, Red Hat, Secure Computing Corporation, Tresys Technology, and Trusted Computer Solutions. Experimental ports of the FLASK/TE implementation have been made available via the TrustedBSD Project for the FreeBSD and Darwin operating systems. The reason NSA is involved in this project is because this organization is responsible for carrying out the research and advanced development of technologies...
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...IT 320 Research Paper 2 Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) has been a pinnacle of the corporate world ever since it came around. It has been an easy to use and replicate without worry of patent or licensing infringement. However, in 2006 Microsoft found that many of their patents had been infringed upon by several different aspects. The Linux kernel found in most servers was one of them. Microsoft took a big leap going after FOSS for 235 patents. FOSS is run by Stallman who was responsible for the GNU Manifesto also known to most as the GNU General Public License (GPL) . With Microsoft heading the full speed train against FOSS it took a demanding tire on both parties. While Microsoft, in the mean time was also striking a deal with Novell on its Linux based server support. FOSS was sure to go under as Linux was the base of all its open source used in many applications and the applications within Linux such as samaba or Open Office. The Deal with Novell was made to walk around the GPL of the GNU and expose loop holes for Microsoft’s gain but also creating a pressing dilemma for the GNU. The deal struck between Novell and Microsoft was a “we don’t sue you and you don’t sue us” which indicates that not only was FOSS involved in patent infringement but also Microsoft. The Deal included over 200 million dollars to Novell and 43 Million to Microsoft for “license distribution” of Novells’ Server software. The after effects of this deal resulted in a addition...
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...George McShane Research Paper 07/13/2012 Linux Security Technologies In today’s world there are many ways to gain access to the internet. You can go to your local library, a Starbucks, any airport, or even a McDonald’s. With all of these ways to have free access to the Web, the opportunity for hacker’s to get to your personal information is at an all time high. Linux programming has many ways to combat this situation with security technologies such as SELinux, chroot jail, iptables, and virtual private networks (VPN’s) to name a few. The basics of Linux security start with Discretionary Access Control, which is based by users and groups. The process starts with a user, who has access to anything that any other user can have access to. At first, it may seem great to be able to have that access, but the security in it is not so great. The US National Security Agency (NSA) developed the SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux) to combat the lack of strong security. (National Security Agency Central Security Service, 2009) Other organizations behind SELinux include the Network Associate Laboratories (NAI) labs which implemented several additional kernel mandatory access controls, developed the example security policy configuration, ported to the Linux 2.4 kernel, contributed to the development of the Linux Security Modules kernel patch, and adapted the SELinux prototype to LSM. The MITRE Corporation which enhanced several utilities to be SELinux-aware, and developed application...
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...are people that are still clueless on the operating system. It is different, exciting when a new and advance system comes out. But some of us are so confused when it comes to the basics of new technology. Operating systems are programs which manages the computer’s hardware. The systems provide a basic for the applications programs between the computer user and its hardware. When looking, there are so many different types of operating systems that are available. The four main operating systems that are used are Windows, Mac, UNIX, and Linux. For every computer there are many different items that make the system a whole. When it comes to the different operating systems there are different features available, even though when you think of computers a person might think security will all be the same but there are difference between each one. As you read more you will understand the security and the difference between a MAC, UNIX/LINUX and Windows systems and how each one works. Access control goal is to protect a resource from unauthorized access while facilitating seamless and legitimate use of such resources. Presently, each day users hold the need to access to those resources through a broad line of devices, such as PCs, laptops, PDA, smartphones and kiosks. Most organizations need to provide protection for their files and allow the correct people to access. The fundamental goal of an Access management system is to maintain confidentiality of user information...
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