Installing Linux
There has been a Mandrake 8.2 distribution CD set made and left out in the OCF lab (or at least, there will be one on Wednesday morning before class). There has also been a machine made available for you to use to install Linux. It's located by the printer (logjam), on the brown desk sitting by itself. There are a number of packages (a.k.a. programs) you should install, and a few other ones that are optional. With the prices of hard disks and their sizes being what they are nowadays, it's well within reason to install every package (just in case you might need it, if you don't feel like really customizing your system). For the purposes of this homework, however, you probably won't want to do that (it will take FOREVER). You'll definitely want to install apache (web server software), or else your linux system isn't going to be serving much to the web (it won't serve anything at all!) Other fun network packages to install: FTP (ftpd), SSH (sshd), and sendmail. What do these do?
FTP: FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It's a way for computers to transfer files that has existed since the earliest stages of network development. When accessing an ftp site, you will see the URL as ftp://(stuff) instead of the usual http://(stuff).
SSH: SSH stands for Secure Shell. This is opposed to RSH, which stands for Remote Shell. A few questions you might have: 1) What's a shell? A shell is the command prompt Linux uses, where you can type in commands. 2) What's the difference between RSH and SSH? RSH sucks. The reason is RSH is completely, totally, 100% insecure. This means when you're sending passwords, credit card numbers, or emails chock full of sweet x-rated nothings, anybody can pick up on what you send and read it. This is bad. Very bad. Not only for you, but also for the system administrators, because as soon as one account has been broken into a hacker will have a much easier time breaking into the whole system. Secure Shell, on the other hand, uses a method of encryption (there are a number of methods, with amusing names like blowfish). What this means is that it's incredibly difficult (though not quite impossible; but it's not worth their while anymore to try to break in) to get to your sensitive data. SSH is good. RSH is bad.
sendmail: Sendmail does exactly what's name implies: it sends mail. Take a look at www.google.org and see what you can find on sendmail.
There are also some other packages that you might be curious about; these will be covered in class.
Your assignment: Install Linux on the computer in the OCF lab. Feel free to install over someone else's installation. Information on topics such as partitioning, formatting, file systems, etc. will be covered in class (a continuation from our first session). Notes will be posted following the class meeting.