Hi,
Sorry about this question. I am very new to Linux and haven't seen a Linux
based system yet but will soon be learning everything i can.

I am going to an office next week that have a Linux based server (all the
information that I have at the moment) that all the users connect to and
they also use Outlook for emails. They are having a few problems with the
hardware or possibly the system it's self. Slow running, crashing etc.

On the server how can I 'see' what hardware is installed so that I can see
if any upgrade or replacement is needed? On a Windows PC I just go to
'Control Panel > System' or use some third party software. How do I do this
on a Linux computer?
Cheers
Lenny

Lenny wrote:

> On the server how can I 'see' what hardware is installed so that I can see
> if any upgrade or replacement is needed?

You see hardware with the following commands:
lspci
lsusb
lshw

All those may not be installed on the server.


> On a Windows PC I just go to
> 'Control Panel > System' or use some third party software. How do I do this
> on a Linux computer?

I recommend a ssh login and just run it in putty.
If it's a real server install, you won't have a graphical interface on the
machine.


--

//Aho

Sorry Aho, what is a ssh login and what is putty? Is there a site around
where I could learn how to do that?

"J.O. Aho" <user@example.net> wrote in message
news:5vhkt7F1mm5atU2@mid.individual.net...
> Lenny wrote:
>
>> On the server how can I 'see' what hardware is installed so that I can
>> see
>> if any upgrade or replacement is needed?
>
> You see hardware with the following commands:
> lspci
> lsusb
> lshw
>
> All those may not be installed on the server.
>
>
>> On a Windows PC I just go to
>> 'Control Panel > System' or use some third party software. How do I do
>> this
>> on a Linux computer?
>
> I recommend a ssh login and just run it in putty.
> If it's a real server install, you won't have a graphical interface on the
> machine.
>
>
> --
>
> //Aho

Lenny wrote:
> "J.O. Aho" <user@example.net> wrote in message
> news:5vhkt7F1mm5atU2@mid.individual.net...
>> Lenny wrote:

<fixing the mess caused by a faulty news client>

>>> On the server how can I 'see' what hardware is installed so that I can
>>> see
>>> if any upgrade or replacement is needed?
>> You see hardware with the following commands:
>> lspci
>> lsusb
>> lshw
>> All those may not be installed on the server.
>>> On a Windows PC I just go to
>>> 'Control Panel > System' or use some third party software. How do I do
>>> this
>>> on a Linux computer?
>> I recommend a ssh login and just run it in putty.
>> If it's a real server install, you won't have a graphical interface on the
>> machine.
>
> Sorry Aho, what is a ssh login and what is putty? Is there a site around
> where I could learn how to do that?

ssh = secure shell, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell
putty = secure shell client for microsoft, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PuTTY

Good tools to learn things:
google.com
wikipedia.org

--

//Aho

Lenny wrote:

> Sorry Aho, what is a ssh login and what is putty? Is there a site around
> where I could learn how to do that?
>
There are two steps you should take:

Firstly check all the Windows computers for malware. There can't be malware
on the Linux server, so you don't need to worry about that. If you
successfully delouse the Windows machines, you will be seen as a hero, and
they'll pay you.

Secondly, get someone in who /really/ knows about Linux servers. If there's
a problem, he'll be able to fix it without any hassle. Again, you'll be
seen as a hero - you got it working!

However, if you mess with the Linux server without knowing what you're
doing, you'll just make trouble for yourself!

I hope the Linux server has a strong root password, and you don't know it!

C.

J.O. Aho <user@example.net> wrote:
>You see hardware with the following commands:
>lshw

I'd never heard of lshw before, but it looks pretty cool. It does a
fairly detailed inventory with a variety of output options, including
XML:

http://ezix.org/project/wiki/HardwareLiSter

-Beej

Beej Jorgensen <beej@beej.us> writes:

> J.O. Aho <user@example.net> wrote:
>>You see hardware with the following commands:
>>lshw
>
> I'd never heard of lshw before, but it looks pretty cool. It does a
> fairly detailed inventory with a variety of output options, including
> XML:
>
> http://ezix.org/project/wiki/HardwareLiSter
>
> -Beej
>

Yup, same here. Nice one.

Hello,

Christopher Hunter a écrit :
>
> There can't be malware
> on the Linux server, so you don't need to worry about that.

Isn't this assertion a bit overconfident ? Malware exists on Linux, so
why couldn't there be some on this server ?

Thus spake Pascal Hambourg:
> Hello,
>
> Christopher Hunter a écrit :
>>
>> There can't be malware
>> on the Linux server, so you don't need to worry about that.
>
> Isn't this assertion a bit overconfident ? Malware exists on Linux, so
> why couldn't there be some on this server ?


Malware on Linux, huh? And your proof is?

--
sk8r-365
Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people;
cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a
standard for the people. -- Isaiah 62:10

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:35:17 +0100, Pascal Hambourg wrote:

> Isn't this assertion a bit overconfident ?

Well, there have been a grand total of about 500 total for *nix/linux
and 99% of those were patched 2 or more years ago. According to
Malware Quietly Reaching 'Epidemic' Levels
http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=143424
I would say we can be pretty confident.

> Malware exists on Linux,

So far it has been there to infect Micro$oft OS.

> why couldn't there be some on this server ?

Well "this server" appears to be a Debian Linux installation and if the system
admin has the usual firewall set and is not surfing the net logged in
as root, there would not be any malware there that could infect my system.

It sure as hell is not coming through my Usenet reader and infect my user
account let alone infect the system and spread.

We can all agree there is no protection from a stupid system admin.
The Linux distributions I have seen come with the firewall enabled and/or no
services running. If malware cannot connect to a service on the
machine you are not going to get infected from the Internet.

If you manage to do something in your user account, only your user
account is damaged and no av software is going to protect you from
that. With the 490 known malware infection/expoits patched two or more
years ago the Anti Virus Vendors are not having much luck selling
/Linux/ AV packages to linux users.

I happen to run Mandriva Linux 2008.0 and it checks for updates about every 3
hours. No waiting a month to get updates let alone security updates.

Pascal Hambourg wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Christopher Hunter a écrit :
>>
>> There can't be malware
>> on the Linux server, so you don't need to worry about that.
>
> Isn't this assertion a bit overconfident ? Malware exists on Linux, so
> why couldn't there be some on this server ?

The only Linux malware is either "proof of concept" stuff that was patched
out years ago or stuff /deliberately/ installed by someone with the root
password!

There is no viable Linux malware.

C.

On 2008-01-20, Lenny became worthy of my attention with:
> Hi,
> Sorry about this question. I am very new to Linux and haven't seen a Linux
> based system yet but will soon be learning everything i can.
>
> I am going to an office next week that have a Linux based server (all the
> information that I have at the moment) that all the users connect to and
> they also use Outlook for emails. They are having a few problems with the
> hardware or possibly the system it's self. Slow running, crashing etc.
>
> On the server how can I 'see' what hardware is installed so that I can see
> if any upgrade or replacement is needed? On a Windows PC I just go to
> 'Control Panel > System' or use some third party software. How do I do this
> on a Linux computer?
> Cheers
> Lenny
>
>

You can use the shell program `lspci' to view the some of your onboard hardware,
and hardware that's in the PCI (and AGP) slots. To find information about your
CPU and RAM, check the text files `/proc/cpuinfo' and `/proc/meminfo'. There you
will find probably more information than you're looking for :p

To find out about harddrives, type `ls /dev/disk'. If your distro has it (Ubuntu
does, I don't know about others, but I imagine all Debian-based distros do),
you can use `ls /dev/disk/by-id' to show the model numbers and partition counts
of hard drives on the system. You can use `df -h' to show where the hard drives
are mounted, and how much space each partition has used/available.

Hope I helped o/
--
"To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it; to mess
up your Windows box, you just need to work on it."
-Scott Granneman