The Linux operating system includes a number of important utilities and features. In this video, you’ll learn about tar, rsync, backups, anti-malware, terminal, and Samba for Linux.
One of the benefits of Linux is there are many options to perform a particular task, and backups is no exception. There are many applications you can use, perform backups from a user’s workstation from a server or almost any type of Linux system. One common utility for backups is called tar which stands for tape archive. Although tape is in the name, this tape archive utility can be used for any type of media, including the files that are on a hard drive, SSD, or any other storage device. Because tar runs as a command line, it’s very easy to automate with scripts, and you’ll occasionally even find software that’s distributed in tar format.
Another useful Linux utility is rsync, which synchronizes files that are on one storage system to the files that are on another storage system. Once rsync is configured, anything you add, change, or modify in the original repository will also be changed on the destination. This might be something that you configure in a scheduled mode that only synchronizes once a day. Or perhaps every time a change is made, rsync synchronizes those changes immediately.
If there’s a backup utility that you’d like to install on your system, you can usually find it and install it using apt-get or yum, which are the package managers available on many Linux distributions. Within the operating system that you’re using, you may find a list of software that you can download install from a graphical update manager, and it can also provide ongoing patches and updates for any of the packages you install.
This is an example of the software that’s available on my Ubuntu desktop. And you can see there are a number of different software utilities that provide backup functions. You just need to find the one that’s right for you, install that on your Linux system, and start backing up your data.
Although the vast majority of viruses and malware have been written for the Windows operating system, there are still viruses and malware for Linux and Mac OS as well. So if you want to protect your Linux system against this malicious software, you want to install one of the many available antivirus software products.
The best practices you have in place for your Windows anti-malware are exactly the same best practices you would use for Linux. You want to have a scanner that runs in real time. So the moment you download a new file, you can immediately have that file scanned behind the scenes so that you can trust anything that you’re bringing onto your system. And like any anti-malware software, it’s only as good as the latest set of signatures. So you want to be sure that it automatically updates the signatures constantly, so you’re always on top of any potential threats.
In a previous video, we described how to use the terminal in Linux, and some of the useful utilities that are available. And as you’ve probably seen, there is a lot that you can do from the command line to give you complete control over your Linux operating system. So if you’re a Linux user or you’re administering a Linux system, you’ll be at the command line often to provide scripting, manage files, configure different settings with your software, and almost anything else inside of the Linux operating system.
If you’ve administered a Windows system, then you’re probably familiar with the Server Message Block or SMB protocol. SMB is a protocol used by Windows to transfer files, access network shares, or print to a network printer. To bridge the gap between Linux and Windows, you can install Samba. This allows SMB, or Server Message Block, to work inside of the Linux operating system.
This means that Linux can share files and print to Windows systems, and you can even integrate with Active Directory using Samba. We can all appreciate the power and capabilities of the Linux operating system, but it’s also nice to be able to integrate with other operating systems. And using Samba, you can effectively turn your Linux server into a Windows-compatible server.