Do you ever wish you could run Linux within Linux? Or how about DOS within Linux? QEMU is an open source application that lets you emulate a complete hardware environment within your Linux system.

The Radius protocol is typically used to authenticate users in dial-up scenarios. But Radius is also useful in LAN environments: in combination with 802.1X, Radius forces users to authenticate at a low level before the switch opens up a port.

What could be more boring than watching a computer run through an error-free boot routine? Why watch for messages that may never appear? Every second you save adds to your valuable leisure time. Bootchart helps you find those valuable leisure moments.

Hardware which just works is what every user wants. Current Linux distributions go a long way to fulfilling that dream. In this article, we will be investigating how the hotplug system works.

The principle behind Rsnapshot is nothing new: use Rsync and SSH to back up files to another computer. What sets Rsnapshot apart is its simple setup and its rich collection of features.

If you do not receive a response to a ping, or if the response is seriously delayed, you might like to take this as a warning. But who wants to ping all day? You need a ping-based monitoring utility like Smokeping.

Data always seems to get lost at exactly the wrong moment, but the right backup strategy can help you restore those missing files.

Your web hoster is fine with serving up HTML, but when it comes to backing up a simple MySQL database, you are often on your own. Or are you?

It is often inefficient to fire up a tape drive whenever you need to back up files or restore a backup. The Rsync tool pushes critical files to a second computer, where you can access them easily.

When backup jobs become too challenging for a script, the daemon-based free backup tool Bacula may be the answer.