I have a couple of clients who are on the same Verio/NTT Virtual Private Server (VPS) system, and I want to have some simple script to check their disk usage. It's not a simple "du" sort of task, however, because of the peculiarities of the VPS environment. Any ideas?

I have a big problem which frequently loops me. I am in the field of IT support, and when a customer comes to me and is short tempered, I really don't know how to convince them that their request is not my part of job and someone else should attend to it.

This happens to me at least 4 - 6 times a week. Can you please tell me how I can answer nicely about the job, and give me some suggestions about handling customers over the mail, phone and face to face in tough times?

There is a process that must be shutdown for maintenance purpose every morning at 5:00 am. Usually it spawn several children and sometimes some of those children don't die, so the parent process won't die either. When the application starts up again it raises a new parent process but in confict with the old one that hasn't died yet. All I need is kill the childs of the old process.

How can I look for every process when I know the parent process id?

Dave, we have a server security problem in Mac OSX, it is being remotely accessed by a former sys admin who has been stealing our business and the webfiles that go with them. Could you work with me to help lock down this machine?

He set the machine up, it is one of several we run. As a result, he knows the root level password. I am finding when we try to change the MySQL root password, which is the same, the websites which rely on MySQL can no longer "see" their data tables. We also must shut out this fellow's access through terminal, or change the server's root name and pass.

Help!

I'm trying to write an awk script that will take a text file phone report from a windows box and break it up into smaller text files. I know it'll only take a few minutes, but I'm not all that familiar with AWK and slogging through this O'Reilly book is really starting to tick me off. Any chance you can help?

I am planning to install DHCP on my Linux Server. I do not know that much in Linux (Red Hat), however. How can I install and configure a DHCP server on my system?

I am using Slackware 10.1 GNU/Linux? OS and quite happy with that. Though I am an advance user, I am having a problem with that!

I want to set the screen resolution to 1152 X 864 with 75Hz Monitor VF that works well with dual boot Windows 2000 Pro. Currently Slackware shows, 800 x 600, 1024 x 768 and 1280 x 1024 (60 Hz). I tried with XorgConfig file but in vain.

So, what do you think?

Dave, I've been using ssh like a good Internet citizen to connect to my remote server, but for security reasons the ISP has disabled root login from ssh on every server. Problem is, I really need to be able to log in as root occasionally. How do I re-enable it?

Dave, I have just purchased your book Solaris 9 for Dummies to help me learn the OS. I have been accustomed to the rubbish Windows XP Pro system and fed up with crashes and the rest of the multitude of problems that are inherent to Windows therefore I purchased a Sun Ultra 5 workstation (refurbished) and really want to get to know it and how to use it.

My problem is that the welcome screen names Alfred as the host. Please would you tell me how to change the name? bearing in mind that I am completely new to Unix systems and somewhat intimidated by the jargon.

On a mailing list I'm on, a member recently asked: "Due to an abusive web crawler, I now have a 230MB Apache access_log file on my Web server. I tried to trim it down using grep, but I don't have enough disk space for the command to succeed. Help!"

If you've been reading my entries, you already know that I've been working on installing different Linuxes on my Mac OS X PowerBook system, with success. All works well until you actually have more than one Linux installed on the system, creating a tri-boot, rather than dual-boot Apple computer. The problem is that, by default, each Linux installs its own version of yaboot which only knows about Mac OS X or itself. So I needed to figure out how to significantly modify the yaboot configuration file to support both Ubuntu and Yellow Dog Linux simultaneously.

I've been working on installing some different Linux operating systems on my G4-based Apple PowerBook as alternative operating systems to the (elegant) Mac OS X. Why? Because they're there. :-)

Once installed, Ubuntu Linux and Yellow Dog Linux both add something called yaboot which then controls the boot-up sequence. This boot control application that lets you pick which operating system you want to have run gives you about 15 seconds to pick between Linux and Mac OS X then defaults to launching Ubuntu. Not what I wanted at all.

A reader sent in an appeal for some Linux help this morning:

I have your book Teach Yourself Unix System Administration in 24 Hours, but still have some questions:

• I have root access to a remote server which is limited to SSH. Can I make an X-server connection and how do I do that while I have an X-server already running?
• From that remote server I need to take files located in a particular account and copy them to a new local server I've installed.
• How do I set up an SSL enabled login account for someone accessing the new local server?

If you're like me, you are getting an ever-increasing flow of spam into your mailbox. What you might not realize, however, if you're a Unix or Linux system administrator, is that you might be part of the problem! In general terms, electronic mail servers (so called "mail transport agents" or MTAs) are only intended to accept mail either to be directly delivered to someone on the system or being sent from somene on the system.

A reader writes:

Here is the problem - when I su to become root I don't have any aliases or any stuff in my path. I also am not sure were the .bash_profile for root goes and if it is even read when su'ing - please help thanks.

A reader of Solaris 9 for Dummies reports:

"Is there a typo in Chapter 15? I'm referring to page 288-289. The book says you should modify the S30network.sh file in step 3 then says you should modify the same place in the same file in step 6. (although this time 'shcat' is just 'cat') I was wondering if in step 6 I should be actually modifying a different file rather than remodify the change just made?"

A common tool people use for managing spam is SpamAssassin, and if you are using it, or just interested in learning more, you'll want to check out my new Guide to Writing your own Add-On Rules for SpamAssassin.

The Mad Hatter project at Sun should prove to be a real boon to Solaris users worldwide, particularly those who hate the transition from Windows or Macs to the more bare-bones CDE environment. Yes, I talk at length in Solaris 9 for Dummies about the transition from CDE to GNOME as a desktop environment for Solaris, but the Mad Hatter project definitely goes further than just a standard GNOME configuration.

A Solaris 9 for Dummies reader asks the following question:

"I just read your book and was sad to see that you didn't cover PPPD in too much depth. I read the links from SUN that you offered and didn't find that much useful for my needs. Do you have PPPD experience? I have DSL but want to use my Sparc 5 for dial-up only just to play around on my web server. I am having a problem with the pap-secrets file and wondered if you had experience with that too?"

I'm very pleased to say that my newest book, Solaris 9 for Dummies is out, and the copies I have look really great.

Teach Yourself Unix System Administration in 24 Hours from Sams/Macmillan is my latest published book. Not only is this a sequel to my best-selling Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours but rather than focus on a single OS, the SysAdmin book simultaneously documents Red Hat Linux, Solaris 8, and the popular Mac OS X system.