Web servers

Question: How can I easily perform incremental backups on my dedicated server? Answer: There are few tasks more important than backing up your server. Because of the nature of computers and especially the nature of the Internet, you are bound to have problems. They may or may not cause data …

The default port for most FTP servers is 21, and that is how most system administrators will leave it. The majority of FTP clients are configured to use it, and some will not even ask you to change it unless you dig through the configuration. There are, however, a few …

Question: I have one instance of Apache running on the standard port 80, but I would like to run another on port 8080 for a different web application. Is this possible? Answer: Yes, it is possible, and it is actually easier than you may think. Rather than creating a new …

For example, you can forward all messages sent to billing@yourdomain, sales, and marketing all to the same address: tom@yourdomain. That way, Tom will handle those email messages accordingly without having to check each of those accounts separately. Most web-based control panels have support for mail forwarding built into them. If, …

YUM is a package management system for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS, Fedora, and other Red Hat-based Linux operating systems. It is command-line driven and is an easy tool you can use to keep your server updated and install any new software you need. Normally, when you perform updates, …

By default, FTP servers require the user to login in order to upload or download files. Many web hosts, however, additionally offer the ability to use anonymous FTP. It basically gives you the ability to allow users to login to the FTP server without providing a username or a password. …

As I have been reiterating all week, an open relay is a bad idea. If your mail server is left open, anyone can use your SMTP service to send mail, and spammers will use it. This can result in your server being blacklisted and extraneous use of system resources that …

Microsoft has formed an alliance with Dell, HP, and Fujitsu to sell pre-configured Microsoft Azure-powered cloud servers. By pre-configured, they mean that the servers should be ready to go without any further configuration required. As such, they call them “appliances” rather than servers. These appliances will allow companies to take …

Question: One of my Linux system log files has suddenly become very large (several hundred megabytes). What should I do? Answer: The first thing to find out is what exactly is happening in the log files. To see the latest log activity for your web server error log, for example, …

Question: My database server is timing out because MySQL seems to hang once it has used up 4GB of RAM, even though the server is equipped with 6GB. How can I make MySQL take advantage of the full 6GB available? Answer: If your current server setup involves a 32-bit architecture …