syslog

This issue of Sys Admin focuses on networking, which is a topic that certainly involves cables, configuration, speed, and connectivity but also includes the reason why we set up systems in the first place -- to send and receive information.

While watching the Tour de France on television recently, I've been struck by the network of information there. Besides the mesmerizing machine-like force and sheer endurance of the riders and besides the daredevil maneuvering of the mechanics who, seemingly as a matter of course, hang out the window of a moving car to adjust the derailleur of a cyclist pedaling alongside, I'm impressed by the infrastructure. A tremendous logistical effort goes into organizing the riders, the support cars, the security personnel, and the equipment. Also, a huge amount of information is gathered and communicated to the riders throughout the race -- data such as heart rate, speed, distance, exertion level, road conditions, etc.

The two-way radio system between the riders and their team cars provides them with all sorts of information about what's happening on the road and allows them to adjust speed and change tactics accordingly. The information can send sprinters to the forefront to chase down a breakaway or alert the whole group to some unseen danger.

Maybe your users don't individually burn almost 6,000 calories a day or collectively go through 800 tires over the course of a race, but they consume equally important resources, such as storage and bandwidth, which must be provided on demand. In this issue, we provide several articles that discuss ways to ensure your own smoothly running network infrastructure. Anshuman Kanwar describes the use of a tool called Rancid to help automate the process of backing up network device configuration, and Jon Hoffman shows how to build a Java class containing the "heartbeat" functionality needed to check the status of remote computers. Nico Coetzee shows how to build a TCP/IP network accounting system, and Greg Bledsoe shows the benefits of using Linux's built-in traffic control features.

I hope you find these articles useful, and I invite you to share your own proven practices with your peers by submitting an article for publication. We're currently looking for articles within the broad themes of Open Source, Security, and Clustering, so please send your proposals to Rikki Endsley Kite at: rendsley@cmp.com.

Sincerely yours,

Amber Ankerholz
Editor in Chief