Markolf Gudjons Issue #68, December 1999 Integrating Linux into a large-scale production network running SPARCs and Windows. Linux has come a long way in these past few years, no longer a geek toy and well on its way to being a mainstream operating system. Linus Torvalds, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, is striving for world domination; however, one of ...

David Morgan Issue #68, December 1999 A look into VPNs—what they are and how they work. Commercial Virtual Private Network (VPN) products are becoming widespread. They let confidential data safely take the “free ride” offered by the Internet, compensating for the Net’s intrinsic lack of security. A Linux VPN can be constructed several ways. One is outlined in the clever ...

Best of Technical Support Various Issue #67, November 1999 Our experts answer your technical questions. Synchronizing Clocks I would like to know how best to synchronize the clocks of the various Linux boxes (various kernels and distributions) on my LAN. —John Morley, jmorley@grafton.demon.co.uk You should try NTP: www.eecis.udel.edu/~ntp. NTP software is included in common Linux distributions such as Red Hat. ...

Kevin Kitts Issue #67, November 1999 Database Administration got you down? Here’s a tool to help you out. Orac is an open-source database administration tool written in Perl/Tk. It was written primarily by and for DBAs (database administrators). However, it will also be very useful to developers and anyone else who wants to understand more about how (and how well) ...

David Axmark Michael xxxxxxx Widenius Issue #67, November 1999 A look at the MySQL database—where it’s been, where it is now, and where it’s going.       MySQL’s history goes back to 1979 when TcX, the company that developed MySQL, started working with database programs. This first version was a screen builder/reporting tool written in BASIC. At that time, ...

Peter Harvey Issue #67, November 1999 Mr. Harvey describes the ODBC open specification for application developers. Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is an open specification for providing application developers with a predictable application programmers interface (API) with which to access data sources. Data sources can be just about anything, provided someone has created an ODBC driver for it. The most common ...

Bruce McDonald Issue #67, November 1999 The persistent nature of Java servlets makes them ideal for database/web technology. Mr. McDonald takes a look at using servlets with PostgreSQL and JDBC. The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) has and continues to be the most commonly used method for creating dynamic and responsive web pages. The main problem with CGI (that stems from ...

Liu Kwong Ip Issue #67, November 1999 Here’s the way to develop a dial-on-demand database cluster in Linux. About half a year ago, we began a project called NORA to develop an information system for a private dental clinic in Hong Kong. The basic requirement was that the clinical information, including patient folders, appointment books, laboratory work, etc., could be ...

Best of Technical Support Various Issue #66, October 1999 Our experts answer your technical questions. Modem Question Can I get two nearby modems to talk over a short connecting line without going through the telco, i.e., going from the phone line connector of one modem to the other with a twisted pair (reversed)? It seems this should work and I ...

Andy Gotz Petri Makijarvi Bernard Regad Manuel Perez Paolo Mangiagalli Issue #66, October 1999 A scientific laboratory in Europe depends on Linux for controlling equipment used in their research. Linux is being used at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility to build distributed embedded controllers. The embedded systems are either PC/104-based systems, which boot from a flashdisk, or VME crates which ...