Computer users with dynamic IP addresses often have to contend with the reality that their internet identity can literally change without warning. For average Internet use, this is not a problem, but if you ever need to host something from home (even a private server that only gives you password access), you will need some support for dynamic DNS.

Dynamic DNS notifies the user’s domain that the IP address has been changed and needs to be updated. When someone remotely connects to the domain, they will get the right computer, even if the IP address changes regularly. The Linux command called nsupdate is a utility that allows the user to update a DNS zone without having to manually edit the zone file.

“nsupdate is a fantastic little utility that enable quick and secure DNS zone updates. Setup is quick and painless, and use is fairly intuitive for anyone remotely familiar with DNS, and skilled enough to admin their own Linux system.”

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Photo Source: Flickr

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A game server is a computer connected to the Internet that hosts multiplayer games for a particular game or multiple games. While some multiplayer games only have official servers, many allow community gamers to host their own games. There are two types: 1. temporary servers that any user can setup to host a particular tournament or match, and 2. a dedicated server that is always live and always available for connections.

The common tendency of a gamer who wants to hosts multiplayer games is to setup a normal PC box in their home with a regular DSL or cable line. Although this may work for temporary servers or small to medium numbers of connections, gaming on a larger scale can be taxing on an ill-equipped PC and a a home network.

In such cases it might behoove the gaming host to get a dedicated line and server-class computer to host their games. The other option is to purchase a hosting account for a dedicated server. The server can either be an un-managed server with a free Linux distribution or a customized gaming server that has been setup for that specific purpose. Either way, the eventual result is higher quality gaming and more enjoyment for the players.

Photo Source: Flickr

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Many website owners need photo galleries for their content. There are essentially three options for someone who wants an online photo gallery:

1. Use one of the gallery scripts supplied and installed by your web hosting provider (if available)
2. Download a free or commercial gallery application and install it on your server
3. Use a third-party photo sharing or gallery hosting site.

The advantage of a locally hosted gallery on your own server is that you can usually easily export your gallery and take it to another host. You also have full control over customization and features (especially if you are using an open source product). With option #1 the biggest disadvantage is that you are limited to whatever your web host provides, which may or may not be available if you switch to another host. The disadvantage of #2 is that you are responsible for updates and maintaining the security and stability of the gallery.

Option #3 eliminates the disadvantages of #1 and #2. Your gallery is maintained by another company and hosted on a remote server. You never have to worry about upgrades. The big disadvantage is that you do not have control over your own content and may not be able to easily export it and take it to another host or gallery.

Photo: Flickr

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Just days after we posted news about Google’s acquisitions that position it to make a large impact on HTML 5 video development, suspicion is floating around the tech world that Microsoft is planning a big announcement for Internet Explorer 9, the next installment of their declining browser.

If Microsoft intends to keep their commanding share of the browser market, they will need to continue to adapt to web standards. At their MIX 2010 developer conference in Las Vegas, experts predict that Microsoft will unveil a new IE version that takes into account HTML 5 elements, including support for vector graphics like SVG.

Even with IE 8, the current version, Internet Explorer is still far behind competitors like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera. If ever there were a time for Microsoft to make a game-changing play, that time is now.

Source: Webmonkey

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Web server administrators should take notice of a “severe” vulnerability that computer scientists have discovered in OpenSSL, the free and open source encryption software package for Linux and Unix-like systems.

The bug is in OpenSSL’s cryptographic library and vulnerability allows attackers to retrieve a server’s cryptographic key, leaving any secure transactions, such as banking and sales, exposed to the attacker. Hundreds of thousands (perhaps even millions) of businesses, banks, and other enterprise-level institutions depend on SSL encryption security, particularly that of OpenSSL.

Those who discovered it said that the attack is difficult to execute, but administrators should still be cautious. An OpenSSL spokesperson said that they are already working on a solution and will release a patch for the software. Furthermore, an attack requires access to the power source of the device, making it unlikely that an attacker could exploit a server, since most attack remotely.

Source: The Register
Photo: Ivan Petrov

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Question: What is FFmpeg hosting?

Answer: FFmpeg is a suite of tools that provide users with video manipulation, editing, streaming, and recording capabilities on numerous platforms and multiple formats. As the name indicates, it supports a number of mpeg compression formats as well as other open and proprietary video codecs.

In order to have better than average video conversion and streaming on a website, you need a webhost that has FFmpeg installed on your server, accessible from web scripts, and ready to use. Since the advent of YouTube, many hosts have started offering dedicate FFmpeg server packages completely separate from their shared hosting accounts.

This allows the video conversion, streaming, and other tasks to use as much of the CPU and RAM that it needs to complete the tasks quickly and thoroughly. Normally, such servers will also include other related tools and libraries to support as many codecs and options as possible. Those may include but are not limited to Myplayer, xvidcore, Ogg (Theora and Vorbis), and LAME (MP3 Encoder).

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Question: How do I upgrade my CentOS installation to a higher version?

Answer: Using YUM you can upgrade CentOS with only a few steps.

1. Backup your important data. If most or all of is in a database, make sure to backup all databases.

2. List all of the updates:

# yum list updates

3. Upgrade your distribution:

# yum update

4. Reboot the server:

# reboot

5. Verify that all systems are working:

# uname -a
# netstat -tulpn
# tail -f /var/log/messages
# tail -f /path/to/log/file
# cat /etc/redhat-release

Note: Because the kernel will be upgraded, you will need to reboot the server after completion, so you should plan a scheduled down time when your website(s) will have the least amount of activity.

Source: nixCraft

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Whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned veteran, you will most certainly need to read some documentation at some point in the life of your website and/or web server. Documentation can take numerous forms, so it is important to know what is available. Here is a quick round-up

1. Manuals (in PDF, HTML, or text) - The most traditional form in electronic format. Most server appliances and control panels will use this type of traditional documentation.

2. Readme files - Most free scripts (php, perl, etc.) rely on readme files to convey important information. These are usually found in the compressed package.

3. Man pages - Linux and UNIX commands almost always have man (manual) pages. Simply type “man command-name”.

4. FAQs and Knowledge bases - Web hosting companies will typically have these for their users.

5. Forums - This is your connection to the large body of web hosting minds, and it’s free.

6. Wikis - Many open source projects will provide documentation in the form of wikis.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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Website owners should always be concerned about the latest news and developments with the web browser wars and Web standards. Decisions made by these third parties can directly affect how your website is presented to your viewers and whether you need to make adjustments.

Our original post centered around Apple and Google’s unwillingness to adopt the open Theora format, citing its inferior performance quality to the proprietary and patent-laced H.264. This is still the case with both Apple and Google producing browsers that support the video tag from HTML 5 but do not support Theora. Youtube has added support for it, but it does not work in Mozilla Firefox, which, as an open source browser, cannot distribute H.264 technology.

It seems dismal, and Microsoft has still added little to the discussion, although they have at least joined it. All of this, however, might be about to take an unusual turn for the better. The Theora format was created by On2 Technologies and then released as open source later. On 17th of February, their stockholders approved a merger with Google and possibly future development on open video formats. This could be good for all parties in the end.

Source: On2 Technologies

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With a name that even sounds like the beautiful love interest of a secret affair, Cassandra appears to be positioning itself to steal the hearts of those once in love with MySQL. Twitter is now set to replace its MySQLdatabase system with the open source home wrecker.

Cassandra was originally developed by Facebook and was released to the public via Google’s code repository in 2008. In 2009, the Apache Foundation added it to its project, and in February of 2010, Apache made it a top-level project. It is designed to work with large amounts of data by spreading the data across multiple servers. Its notable feature is that it has no single point of failure.

Twitter joined a growing list of major companies that have adopted Cassandra. Among them are Digg, Cisco, IBM. Cassandra is free and open source software released under the Apache License 2 and is available for download from Apache.org.

Photo: Flickr

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