Fire Up your own Linux Server

Archive Manager

The Archive Manager depicted in Figure 4.26 is used to create archives of files on your system. It can handle a number of different archive formats, from the .zip format with which Windows users will be familiar, through to Java's .jar format, and Unix's .tar.

Figure 4.26. The Archive Manager application.

It's available from Applications > System Tools > Archive Manager.

The Archive Manager can be used to create a new archive or to add files to an existing archive. It's also used to view the contents of existing archives. To create a new archive, click on the New icon, then select the name and location of the new archive.

Next, you'll want to click the Add button in the main Archive Manager toolbar. In the resulting window, click to the location in which you'd like to store the new archive, and give it a name.

You can add files one at a time by clicking the Add button, or by dragging and dropping files or folders from Nautilus, as shown in Figure 4.27.

Figure 4.27. Adding a directory.

The Archive Manager can also be used to view or extract the contents of an archive. Click Open and select an archive, then click Extract on the toolbar. Archive Manager will display the Extract dialog which, as you can see in Figure 4.28, "Archive Manager's Extract dialog.", contains many options for extracting archived files.

Figure 4.28. Archive Manager's Extract dialog.

Floppy Formatter

To format a floppy disk, enter the path to the floppy device in the Floppy device text box; if the machine has only a single floppy, /dev/fd0 will be grayed in this text field. Select the density, the filesystem type and, if desired, add a volume name. You can also select the mode for formatting, including quick, standard, or thorough. When all the parameters are complete, click the Format button to complete the format. The Floppy Formatter, which is shown in Figure 4.29, is available from Applications > System Tools > Floppy Formatter.

Figure 4.29. The Floppy Formatter.

Hardware Browser

Figure 4.30. The Hardware Browser.

Fedora Core's Hardware Browser provides a view of all the hardware installed on your system. Detailed views can be gained by highlighting a device, as seen in the Hard Drive view in Figure 4.30.

Pointing devices, network devices, printers, and all other hardware devices are viewable from this window. You can launch the Hardware Browser by selecting Applications > System Tools > Hardware Browser.

Network Devices and Internet Connection

Fedora, of all the Linux distributions, is especially easy to configure for Internet access. The Internet Configuration Wizard shown in Figure 4.31 (Applications > System Tools > Internet Configuration Wizard) provides a complete, step-by-step walkthrough for configuring Ethernet cards, dialup and DSL modems, wireless cards, and other connection types.

Figure 4.31. The Internet Configuration Wizard.

Fedora's parent distribution, Red Hat, pioneered the process of probing and detecting hardware devices. Network devices are no exception, as can be seen in Figure 4.32. The majority of commercially available network devices can be detected and displayed within this window.

Figure 4.32. Probing network devices.

The Configure Network Settings dialog (shown in Figure 4.33), within the Internet Configuration Wizard, allows you to select your connection type—DHCP or static—and to provide a hostname for identification on the network.

Figure 4.33. The Configure Network Settings dialog.

Kickstart

Fedora provides a tool that's intended primarily for administrators in a large environment: the Kickstart Configurator shown in Figure 4.34.

Need a Kick?

Kickstart is not included in the standard server installation of Fedora Core 4. If you need to install it, run the Package Management application discussed previously, and select the system-config-kickstart package from the Administration Tools group.

Figure 4.34. The Kickstart Configurator.

Kickstart provides a way to create a common system configuration that can later be leveraged in the installation of Fedora on multiple systems across a network. All the installation options are contained in a single text file that's written by the Kickstart Configurator tool. The parameters of the text file include boot loader options, partition information, network configuration, authentication, firewall configuration, display, RPM package selection, and other items. This is a favorite Fedora tool, as the Configurator makes it possible to install Fedora on all the machines in an entire office without ever leaving the server room.

System Monitor

The System Monitor shown in Figure 4.35 provides a constantly updated view of the processes running on your system. This can be useful when you sense, but can't quite quantify, a lag in your system. The listing displays the process name, the user under which the process is running, the memory used, and the process ID for each application currently in use. As an administrative user, you can view your processes, all processes, or only the active processes.

Figure 4.35. The System Monitor.

You can obtain detailed information on any process by highlighting the process and clicking the More Info button in the process listing window. If necessary, a running process can be stopped by highlighting the process and clicking the End Process button.

Figure 4.36. The Resources tab of the System Monitor.

The Resources tab of the System Monitor provides high-level, real-time graphs of your system's resource usage, like those shown in Figure 4.36. CPU and memory usage are shown in graphs that are updated at regular intervals. The lower pane in the window contains a view of hard drive usage, including the percentage of space used on each device.

Summary

Linux is a powerful operating system, and can fulfil a variety of server roles. In this chapter, we've discussed the basics: how to administer a Linux system, how to configure it to provide new services, and how the filesystem is put together. Now it's time to move on to the real topic of this book: building your own Web server.

That wraps up this sample of "Run Your Own Web Server Using Linux & Apache".

Download this article in PDF format for future reference. The complete Table of Contents covers all the other topics that are explained in this new release, and you can see what other readers think of the book with our live customer reviews.