pam_usb: PAM authentication by USB Storage device

pam_usb is a PAM module which allows authentication through a USB storage device such as USB memory sticks/key/whatever you want to call them. It used DSA private/public keys for authentication. Once your USB storage device is setup and your pam.d directory is updated, you just plug in your usb storage device when you login, and the module checks against the public key on the host and your private key on the USB storage device. Nice. 🙂

Upgrading Linux boxes to 2.6.0

A few articles are popping up around the traps on upgrading to the latest test 2.6.0 linux kernels. Over at kerneltrap.org, they take us through updating a system from a vendor neutral point of view. Over here and here, there are instructions for Redhat boxes. Looks like RPM has some issues with the 2.6.0 test kernels, so you’ll need to update to the latest version.

Also over at Redhat, there are some unofficial kernel rpms as well, which can get installed with APT, if you have it installed on your system.

Take action! Send a message

On the EFF website there is an email campaign against SCO‘s tactics against Linux.

Linux Users Unite: Stop SCO!

The SCO Group, Inc. recently announced that it plans to sue individual Linux users if they refuse to pay the company a $700 licensing fee. This is an effort designed by SCO to bolster its licensing claims against IBM and Red Hat by beating up on people who can’t afford a multimillion-dollar defense. SCO hasn’t proven that it has a right to collect this money at all, so its attempt to hold end-users liable is a terrible misuse of the legal system. Tell Congress that SCO’s tactics are unacceptable!

Mac OS X Terminal.app replacement

A nice looking Terminal.app replacement is iTerm. Apparently it features “Xterm compatibility” and “better VT100 emulation”. I’ll have to give it a crack when I get home. It bothers me when I try to use terminal apps like vim. Pressing the page up and down and various other keys seems to illicit different results to what I’m used to in other terminals (although it could mean I should learn to use vim properly ;-)). The other nice feature that is have is tabs. Oh baby, can’t get enough of those tabbed applications! 😉

Also, here’s a nice screenshot of iTerm in action:

iTerm screenshot

Other features include, Native Cocoa application that supports OS X, Applescript support, transparent windows, address book, anti-idle function that avoids disconnection because of no activity and supported language encodings with localizations for Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, Japanese and Korean