FireFTP is an FTP program that works within the Firefox Web browser. Well, Firefox is not actually a full-pledge program but a Firefox plugin or addon. The best thing about this ftp client is that it’s FREE! (Just like any other open source applications/software).

If you’re not familiar with Firefox, it’s an open source web browser and I suggest you use it right now. Trash that IE and start using Firefox (or Google Chrome - cooler!).

File transfer protocol (FTP) is how we send large files from one computer to another using the Internet — not an e-mail attachment.

Here’s how to install and use FireFTP on Firefox.

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When we say or mention the word Web Server, the first thing that comes to our mind is Apache, right? (if you don’t then what are you doing here reading this? :-))

Apache is the most well known open source web server there is! Open source?? Make that the most wildly used webserver on the internet, period!

It is believed (and i know they made a survey or study about it) that Apache takes 90% of all web servers in the internet. Most web hosting company, and I’ve once worked in one, use Apache.

This post will talk about how to setup Apache for Virtual Hosting

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Here’s the news that everyone involved in IT should know by now - Sun Microsystems bought Mysql AB!

For those who doesn’t know, MySQL AB is  the company behind MySQL, the world’s most popular open source database.

From the blog of Sun Microsystems’ CEO, Jonathan Schwartz‘ :

We announced big news today - our preliminary results for our fiscal second quarter, and as importantly, that we’re acquiring MySQL AB.

… we’re putting a billion dollars behind the M in LAMP.

With this ground breaking event, I’m sure there will be some far out development in Mysql/Sun in the near future.

I would like to post an update on our previous OpenLDAP source installation, but I encountered an error so, enough with the source thing and let’s install one from packages which is available on Sunfreeware.

OpenLDAP is an open source implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. These build packages installs in /usr/local/

Requirements and Dependencies

Here’s what packages you’ll need:

• openldap-2.3.35

Dependencies are:

• openssl-0.9.8e
• sasl-2.1.21
• libiconv,
• db-4.2.52.NC
• libgcc_s.so.1 which you can get on libgcc-3.4.6 or gcc-3.4.6

This implementation of OpenLDAP was build on a sparc machine Sun Blade 100 workstation running Solaris 8.

Installing Packages

You can go ahead and refer to this post in using the pkgadd .

Once all the packages are installed above, the binary can be found in /usr/local/bin , /usr/local/sbin and config files are in /usr/local/etc.

There are some more setup and configuration to setup (like setting of variables) but as far as installation is concern, we’re done.

See you on the next post about configuration for OpenLDAP

For the UNIX side of things, we’ll try to feature one command a week that is commonly used in system/user administration on a UNIX box. If anyone wants to contribute more, then we may do one command every two days or ‘Unix Command for the day’. Something like that.

For today, it’s all about getent.

getent is short for Get Entries. The command suppose to get entries from an administrative database. This database can be passwd, group, hosts, ipnodes, services, protocols, ethers, network or netmasks.

For each of these  databases, getent uses the appropriate library routines described in getpwnam, getgrnam, gethostbyaddr, gethostbyname,   getipnodebyaddr, getipnodebyname, getservbyname,  getprotobyname, ethers(3SOCKET), and getnetbyname(3SOCKET), respectively.

getent prints out the database entries that match each of the supplied keys, one per line, int the format of the matching administrive file: Examples, passwd, group, hosts, etc….

Example: To check if a user dpusp or information about the TIT group:

# getent
usage: getent database [ key … ]
# getent passwd dpusp
dpusp:x:7781:500::/export/home/TIT/dpusp:/bin/sh
#
# getent group TIT
TIT::500:adleo,gfish,rpesc,ftpoper,amkor
#

There.

innotek VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware. VirtualBox allows an unmodified operating system with all of its installed software to run in a special environment, on top of your existing operating system. Just like VMware Workstation allows one physical machine to run two or more operating systems simultaneously

You’ll then be presented the User License Agreement. Selecting the custom installation will give you the next window. It shows which Virtual Box component to be installed and the location where it will be installed. After selecting your choice, click Next.

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Here’ s one cool application for the Open-Source followers! Introducing the portable app. Now, you can enjoy the applications you love from a computer running you know what.

PortableApps.com Suite™ is a collection of portable apps including a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, antivirus, sudoku game, backup utility and integrated menu, all preconfigured to work portably. Just drop it on your portable device and you’re ready to go.

Enough said… This is cool stuff!

Using a portable storage device, such as an IPod (5th Gen) or an USB thumdrive, you can bring along with you all your favorite programs by using PortableApps. You can use the Web, read email, transfer files, chat with friends, ssh into machines, edit images and sounds, watch movies and listen to music, write office documents, zip up the results, and store passwords securely!

From now on, no matter which computer you use, you can always bring your favorite applications with you.

There are lots more application on the website!