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UMASK in Linux or Unix systems is known as User Mask or it is also called as User file creation Mask. This is a base permission or default permission when a new file or folder is created in the Linux machine.  It is used by multiple commands in Linux like mkdir, touch, tee, and other commands which creates files and directories. It gets involved in each and every step when a new file or directory gets created.  File Permissions: Before we move ahead to deep dive and understand umask, let’s first understand file permissions in short. Linux is known for its...

Surprising reports paints Linux and Android as less secure than Windows Which operating system has suffered the most vulnerabilities since around the turn of the millennium? That would be Linux, not Microsoft’s Windows, at least according to a freshly released report. An analysis of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s National Vulnerability Database, compiled by Thebestvpn.com, tracked ‘technical vulnerabilities’ in popular pieces of software between 1999 and 2019. And Debian, a flavor of Linux, was top of the table with 3,067 vulnerabilities over the last two decades. Reasonably close behind was Android on 2,563 vulnerabilities, with the Linux kernel...

ok- I dual boot windows 7 and linux- which works great- my main os is linux for all internet stuff and emails etc- Has been going great for al ong time- but now all of a sudden my Thunderbird will not "Save To" my second hard-drive anymore- which is formatted to ntsf (so that i don't run into issues when booting to windows-) So- for years I've been able to right click on an attachment in thunderbird, choose 'save to', select 'other locations' on the left which would bring up al the drives- and I'd choose my second HD, choose...

The overall best VPN services encrypt all your internet traffic and pass it through a private tunnel to their own secure servers so that no one can see what you're reading or downloading - not the government, not your ISP, not even the VPN service itself.Very simply, a VPN (short for virtual private network) is an app you can download for your mobile or laptop that allows you to hide your location, identity and IP address from the rest of the internet.All internet content is completely encrypted - securely jumbled so no one could read it even if they intercepted...

Buckle up, we’re going on a road trip with this one, but I promise if you stick with me it will be worth it…In this article I am going to lay out five non-technical tips for the Linux beginner. These are things I wish someone had told me twenty plus years ago when I started to tinker with my first Linux installation. 1) Ask Questions, But Ask the Right Way I belong to a lot of Linux forums, user groups, and social media groups. There is often a ton of good conversations in these groups about all things pertaining to...

Aw, how generous Hey, Linux fans! Microsoft has got your back over fileless threats. Assuming you've bought into the whole Azure Security Center thing.Hot on the heels of a similar release for Windows (if by "hot" you mean "nearly 18 months after") comes a preview aimed at detecting that breed of malware that inserts itself into memory before attempting to hide its tracks.A fileless attack tends to hit via a software vulnerability, inject a stinky payload into an otherwise fragrant system process and then lurk in memory. The malware also attempts to remove any trace of itself on disk, which...

I love being a Linux system administrator, but there are things about it that I don't love. No job is perfect, but someone should at least warn the newcomers of the dangers that lie ahead. Well, you've come to the right place to find out everything you wanted to know, and probably a little extra, about being a Linux system administrator. These are my experiences and might not reflect the greater system administration universe. I make no claims, promises, or guarantees by presenting these ten things I wish I'd know before becoming a Linux system administrator to you. They are in no...

The Document Foundation announced today the general availability of the LibreOffice 6.4 open-source and cross-platform office suite for all supported platforms.LibreOffice 6.4 has been development during the past five months, but the final release is now available to download for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows systems. This is a major release that introduces several new features, multiple performance improvements, especially when working with presentations and spreadsheets, as well as better compatibility with Microsoft Office documents. “LibreOffice 6.4 is the first new release available in 2020. During the year, the community will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the best free office suite...

Dayglored Note: This is a real article from 2001. Ballmer really did say this, and believe it... Contaminates all other software with Hippie GPL rubbish Microsoft CEO and incontinent over-stater of facts Steve Ballmer said that "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches," during a commercial spot masquerading as a interview with the Chicago Sun-Times on June 1, 2001.Ballmer was trying to articulate his concern, whether real or imagined, that limited recourse to the GNU GPL requires that all software be made open source."The way the license is written, if you...

I am familiar with Windows 7 and do not like Windows 10 shell, but I just switched to 10, and made it look just like 7. So now I can get Microsoft update support for many years, while the support for Windows 7 stops on January 14, 2020 making it more vulnerable to hacking after that date. The process was smooth and I like the results so far.

Secure Shell (SSH) is a cryptographic network protocol used for an encrypted connection between a client and a server. The ssh client creates a secure connection to the SSH server on a remote machine. The encrypted connection can be used to execute commands on the server, X11 tunneling, port forwarding, and more.There are a number of SSH clients available both free and commercial, with OpenSSH being the most widely used client. It is available on all major platforms, including Linux, OpenBSD, Windows, macOS and others.In this article, we will explain how to use the OpenSSH command-line client (ssh) to login...

Requesting feedback for a distribution of Linux to install on a spare PC. The PC has a 4th Gen Intel i5 processor, 8GB RAM, and a 1 TB hard drive, so I should be good to go. While I used UNIX a lot during my 30+ year career, I have minimal Linux experience.

Linux system administration is a job. It can be fun, frustrating, mentally challenging, tedious, and often a great source of accomplishment and an equally great source of burnout. That is to say, it's a job like any other with good days and with bad. Like most system administrators, I have found a balance that works for me. I perform my regular duties with varying levels of automation and manual manipulation and I also do a fair amount of research, which usually ends up as articles. There are two questions I'm going to answer for you in this article. The first is,...

Linux was a 'cancer' but Microsoft is now defending it IBM, Microsoft and the Linux Foundation have partnered with the Open Invention Network (OIN), a company formed to protect Linux from patent threats, to take on "Patent Assertion Entities", also known as patent trolls.Specifically, the group will help fund the Open Source Zone of Unified Patents, an organisation which provides legal services to deter "unsubstantiated or invalid patent assertions".The move had already been flagged at the Open Source Summit in Lyon last month, but the identity of the participating companies was not then known. OIN CEO Keith Bergelt spoke to...

To: The Linux Foundation Jim Zemlin: Executive Director Angela Brown: VP of Events Andy Updegrove: Legal Council From: Robert Martin (@unclebobmartin) (unclebob@cleancoder.com) Re: Code of Conduct case of Charles Max Wood. Dear Linux Foundation: I am writing to you as a concerned member of the software development community which I have enjoyed serving for the last 50 years. I am writing in public because the events I wish to describe took place in public. I fear that something has gone terribly wrong within your organization; and that it will have deep repercussions within this industry that I cherish. The timeline...

After a brief delay, while last-minute bugs were fixed, Fedora 31 has just rolled out the door, and besides being a worthy Linux distribution in its own right, it's even more interesting for what it tells us about parent company Red Hat's future plans for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).We tend to think of Fedora as a desktop operating system, but while it's great at that role, it's far more than that. Besides golden oldies such as the self-explanatory Fedora Workstation and Fedora Server, we also now have Fedora CoreOS, Fedora IoT, and Fedora Silverblue.CoreOS, like the name indicates for those...

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Home directories have been a fundamental part on any Unixy system since day one. They’re such a basic element, we usually don’t give them much thought. And why would we? From a low level point of view, whatever location $HOME is pointing to, is a directory just like any other of the countless ones you will find on the system — apart from maybe being located on its own disk partition. Home directories are so unspectacular in their nature, it wouldn’t usually cross anyone’s mind to even consider to change anything about them. And then there’s Lennart Poettering.In case you’re...

With Microsoft embracing Linux ever more tightly, might it do the heretofore unthinkable and dump the NT kernel in favor of the Linux kernel? No, I’m not ready for the funny farm. As it prepares Windows 11, Microsoft has been laying the groundwork for such a radical release.I’ve long toyed with the idea that Microsoft could release a desktop Linux. Now I’ve started taking that idea more seriously — with a twist. Microsoft could replace Windows’ innards, the NT kernel, with a Linux kernel.It would still look like Windows. For most users, it would still work like Windows. But the...

Summary: Microsoft and its boosters (media insiders) spread the illusion that Microsoft is “opening up”; the reality, however, is that it’s looking to tighten control over Linux while at the same time profiting from exFAT patents owing to back room deals TECHRIGHTS has come to the saddening realisation that entryism inside Linux is in an advanced phase if not a “terminal” stage.The “4 Freedoms” of Richard Stallman (RMS) are probably not enough for Software Freedom. There are glaring loopholes or workarounds. We’re not talking about stuff like systemd here. We talk about changes/passage of ownership/control. If you allow moles, entryism...