In a previous post, we learned how to increase the memory limit on PHP by editing the php.ini file. But limits exist for a reason, and although you would probably love to give every process, every script, and every website unlimited CPU cycles, memory, and bandwidth, it just isn’t possible.

To begin editing, open /etc/php.ini in your text editor of choice. For example:

# nano /etc/php.ini

Look for the following values and change them to fit your requirements for your server. Below are just suggested values:

max_execution_time = 30
max_input_time = 30
memory_limit = 40M
post_max_size = 8M
upload_max_filesize = 2M

You may need to adjust the actual size limits to meet the requirements of certain content management systems or scripts, but be sure to not get carried away with being too liberal.

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Question: I am concerned about some services loaded during my Linux server’s boot up, but it does not seem to keep any log of it. How do I fix this?

Answer: If you are running a Debian-based server, boot-logging is disabled by default. The only way to find out what is happening during a boot, other than being at the console and watching it happen, is to enable bootlogd.

Using a text editor (such as vi or nano), edit the file /etc/default/bootlogd as root.

Find the line that has “BOOTLOGD_ENABLE” and change “no” to “yes”.

BOOTLOGD_ENABLE=yes

Once you have rebooted, you should now have information in /var/log/boot about your system’s booting process.

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Everyone knows how annoying it is to spend hours thinking of a good domain only to find out it’s taken. In the YouTube video above, Internet entrepreneur and amateur comedian Chris Pirillo pokes fun at this unfortunate fact of life. Using Wordoid as an example, he points out how useless and shoddy domain generators can be.

If a domain generator can’t help me, I find a thesaurus to be very helpful when registering domains. There are a number of online word tools that will bring up a variety of synonyms for any given word. The best domains are all taken, but there are still many good ones out there!

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MasterCard has won a domain dispute filed with the WIPO involving the domain mastercard-brasil.com.The name has been taken from Pattishall McAuliffe, the registrant, and transferred to the firm.

In its complaint, MasterCard claimed the name violated its trademark and that the registrant was using it to collect the personal information of customers who had actually intended to visit the real MasterCard site.

It’s clear that the domain violates MasterCard’s trademark, but I doubt that McAuliffe was collecting personal information because according to the case documents, the name was inactive. How can you collect information from a domain without a website?

Photo | Flickr

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When most people think of Ubuntu, they think of the award-winning community-driven desktop Linux distribution created by South African billionaire Mark Shuttleworth and his army loyal supporters. But Shuttleworth is still a businessman, and part of his investment is making sure people who use Ubuntu at the server level have support.

Don’t worry. Despite how it sounds, this is a good thing. It means those who use Ubuntu at the server level are not up a creek if something goes wrong. Most server-ready Linux distributions are backed by companies that will offer support for them. Ubuntu offers a service called Landscape that helps you monitor and manage your server.

Landscape has two versions: Hosted Edition, which is hosted remotely and accessed over the web and Dedicated Server Edition, which you install directly on your dedicated server. Canonical currently offers a free 60 day trial, and a subscription to Landscape is $150 per node per year.

Source: Canonical

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When you have a small to medium-sized business (SMB), it is tempted to take lowest service offer, especially when a vendor makes big promises. There are plenty of database vendors on the market, and some of them offer very attractive custom proprietary packages or cloud computing solutions. But before you commit your data to what will likely be its permanent resting place, consider a few things:

1. If a vendor makes you custom database software and then goes out of business, what happens to your data?
2. If a vendor’s cloud computing infrastructure breaks down, what happens to your data?
3. If later on down the road, you want to transfer your databases to something more standard, will you lose data in the conversion?

The answer to all three is that some or all of your data could go up in smoke. That is why more businesses, even large ones are opting for free and open source solutions like MySQL or PostgreSQL. You can still hire someone to set it up and manage it, but when that company fades away, your data is still safe. Even if you opt for a cloud solution, having access to your open source databases means that you can pull them at any time and move them to another server with minimal data loss.

Photo: Flickr

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Interested in data center technology? Have a knack for words? Then you may want to enter the data center haiku contest.

Entries are due on February 15 and can be submitted through Twitter or email. The prize is only a mug with your poetry written on the side, but I still think this contest is pretty neat.

Here is a good example of haiku from the page:

Yesterday it worked
Today it does not, black cloud
No one hears your screams

Who said geeks weren’t creative?

Photo | Flickr

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Domain sales in February are off to a slow sort. A number of domains sold over the last week, but no six-figure sales were reported.

Topping the charts is 3p.com, which fetched $19,500. LTN.com sold for $12,501 with screenprinter.com trailing close behind at $12,000. Zipcode.org also garnered €4,250.

On the ccTLD front, the highest sale was highheels.co.uk for £4,500. In addition, finden.at (German for “find”) sold for €4,500. The award for most creative domain sold this week, however, goes to whistle.in. This clever play on words earned its owner £1,850.

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Tech giant Microsoft won a dispute filed with the National Arbitration Forum over the domain bingnews.org this week. The company alleged that the name, which was registered by Prabhjot Singh, violated the trademark of its Bing search engine.

Microsoft won the case because of its trademark on “Bing” and because the registrant did not respond, but was this domain really worth going after? It is true that companies must pursue violations in order to keep their marks, but is going after each and every one necessary? In this instance, Singh didn’t appear to be using the name in bad faith. The domain itself isn’t very good, either. I doubt either party could profit from it.

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Picture this. You’re on the go, traveling, working, going on a date, or even just taking a nap, and you suddenly start getting phone calls. Little do you know that those phone calls are from angry customers or your boss. The server went down two hours ago, but you had no idea what was going on.

Many of us in the IT industry, particularly server administrators, have experienced a scenario like this one. It could be something small. Maybe Apache just needs a restart, but instead of it being a small issue, your stakeholders blow it out of proportion. Rather than getting upset with them and possibly losing your job, why not put your iPhone to use?

Root Internet, an Internet service company, offers an iPhone server monitoring tool. It pings HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SSH, SMTP, DNS, POP3, IMAP, MySQL, and custom TCP/IP services that you specify. When your server experiences trouble, you will receive a notification on your iPhone, through email, and even a text message. Now you can rest easy and enjoy your vacation time - that is until the next disaster strikes.

Source: Apple.com
Photo: Flickr

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