7.2. Adding a New User Figure 19.14. Adding a New User in the System We now have two users in our list. Select one of them with your mouse, and click on the Edit button. The dialog box shown in Figure 19.15, Adding Users to a Group [289] will pop up. It allows you to modify most available user parameters. Figure 19.15. Adding Users to a Group
Edit 7.2. Adding a New User Allows you to change the parameters of the selected user or group. We will detail editing user parameters in Section 7.2, Adding a New User [288]. In the case of a group you will be able to assign or remove users from that group. Delete Removes the selected user or group from the system. A confirmation dialog will be shown, and in the case of a user you will also be able to remove the user’s /home directory and mailbox. 7.2. Adding a New User We created the non-privileged user Queen Pingusa at installation time, and now we want to create a new user called Peter Pingus. Then we want to make them both members of the fileshare group, so that they can share folders with other users on the network (see Section 5, Allowing Users to Share Folders [312], custom option). Click on the Add User button, the dialog box to add a new user will pop up (see Figure 19.14, Adding a New User in the System [289]). The only required field is Login although we strongly recommend that you set up a password for this new user: enter it in both the Password and Confirm Password fields. You can also choose to add a comment in Full Name. Generally, this is the full name of the user, but you can put whatever you want.
7. Managing Users and Groups 7. Managing Users and Groups UserDrake allows system administrators to easily add and remove users from the system, to assign users to a group, and to manage user groups in the same manner. In this section we will only focus on user management. Group management being similar. 7.1. The Interface Launching UserDrake will display the main window (Figure 19.13, The User List in UserDrake [287]) which lists the users currently defined on the system. You can switch from users to groups by clicking on the Groups tab next to the Users tab. Figure 19.13. The User List in UserDrake All changes have immediate effect on your local user database. If the user list is modified outside of UserDrake, you can refresh UserDrake’s window by clicking on the Refresh button. If you make changes to an already logged in user, those changes won’t take effect until he or she logs out, and logs in again. Available actions are: Add User Adds a new user to the system. We will detail this procedure in Section 7.2, Adding a New User [288]. Add Group Adds a new user group to the system.
6. Access to the Console Figure 19.12. Setting up a Mail Alert: Recipient Finally you need to tell the system to whom these alerts should be sent to (see Figure 19.12, Setting up a Mail Alert: Recipient [286]). Provide an e-mail address and the mail server (local or on the Internet) to relay the alerts to. When the wizard is finished, an hourly check is set up to check for unavailable services and the system’s load. If needed a mail alert is sent to the alerts’ recipient. 6. Access to the Console This tool simply opens a virtual terminal console for the root user. You can use it to issue any command, but be careful! There are no restrictions on the actions you can take on your machine as root, and you could render your machine unusable. To learn how to use the command line interface, you should read Chapter 33, In troduction to the Command Line [441]. To exit the console, type exit or press Ctrl -D .
5.2. Setting up Mail Alerts Xinetd Service. Figure 19.11. Setting up a Mail Alert: Load Select the load you which you consider unacceptable by moving the Load slider (see Figure 19.11, Setting up a Mail Alert: Load [285]). A high system load may indicate that a process has gone out of control, or simply that there’s a very high demand on this machine. Therefore a service is suffering from it and is delayed. As a rule of thumb, the load on your computer should not exceed 3 times the number of processors you have on it.
5.2. Setting up Mail Alerts Figure 19.10. Setting up a Mail Alert: Services The next step (see Figure 19.10, Setting up a Mail Alert: Services [284]) allows you to select the services you wish to receive alerts from in case they stop working. Simply check the service boxes which interest you, and go on to the next step. The services listed are the ones present on your system. Here’s a list of the currently tracked ones: Postfix Mail Server; Webmin Service; FTP Server; BIND Domain Name Resolver; Apache World Wide Web Server; SSH Server; Samba Server;
5.2. Setting up Mail Alerts 2. Then in the Choose file area select the file you want to perform the search on. Simply check the corresponding box. The Mandriva Linux Tools Log is filled by Mandriva Linux-specific configuration tools, like those you find in the Mandriva Linux Control Center. Each time these tools modify the system configuration they write a line in this log file. 3. Optionally, you can restrict the search to a specific day. In that case, check the Show only for the selected day box and choose the desired day from the calendar. 4. When all is set up, click on the Search button. The results will appear in the Content of the file area at the bottom. Clicking on the Save button will open a standard dialog letting you save the search results into a plain text (*.txt) file. 5.2. Setting up Mail Alerts In order to facilitate server monitoring, Mandriva Linux supplies a simple tool which sends automatic mail alerts whenever something goes wrong on your server. Clicking on the Mail alert button of the LogDrake main interface (see Figure 19.9, Browsing and Searching through System Logs [282]) starts the wizard. First you’re asked whether you wish to configure or stop the mail alert system. Choose Con figure the mail alert system entry in the pull-down list, and click Next .
5.1. Browsing System Logs Additionally a nifty wizard allows you to set up mail alerts to be warned whenever the load is too high on your machine, or when a service is shut down. 5.1. Browsing System Logs Figure 19.9. Browsing and Searching through System Logs These are the steps to follow in order to browse or look for a specific event into the system logs: 1. You must choose which specific words to match by filling the Matching (log files contain the words) field and/or the but not matching (log files which don’t contain the words) field. At least one of the two fields must be filled.
5. Monitoring System Activity and Status You can set the date on the left and the time on the right: To change the year, click on the little arrows on each side of the year; same procedure to change the month. This updates the month view where you can click on the current day in order to highlight it. We recommended that you check the time-zone settings for your geographical location. Click on the Change Time Zone button and select the correct place in the tree view. Once you’ve chosen the time zone, a dialog will appear asking you whether your hardware clock is set to GMT. Answer Yes if only GNU/Linux is installed on your machine, No otherwise. To change the time, you can either move the hour, minute and second hands of the analog clock, or change the numbers below it. If you have a permanent Internet connection and want your system to synchronize its internal clock with time servers on the Internet, put a check mark in the Enable Network Time Protocol option and select a server in the Server pull- down list, preferably one near you. If you know the name or the IP address of a local server you can also enter it manually in that field. The NTP (Network Time Protocol) package needs to be installed. If it isn’t, a dialog will pop up and ask you whether you wish to install it. If you select the pool.ntp.org server, NTP will automatically choose a server near to the time zone you selected. When you’re finished, click on OK to apply your settings or Cancel to close the tool, which will discard your changes. If you want to return to your previous set tings, click on Reset . 5. Monitoring System Activity and Status This tool allows you to look for specific entries in various log files, therefore making it easier to search for particular incidents or security threats.
4. Setting your Machine’s Date and Time will open a standard dialog allowing you to specify the font file to import. Once you’ve specified all the fonts you want to import, click on the Install fonts button. To select more than one font, double-click on the first font you wish to select and it will be added to the Import Fonts window. Then double- click the other fonts you wish to install and the same action will occur. When you are done click on the Close button and then on the Install fonts button. Once the installation operation is done, make sure the new fonts appear in the Family list. 4. Setting your Machine’s Date and Time This little tool enables you to set your system’s correct internal date and time. Figure 19.8. Changing Date and Time