Ten must -have Open Source Tools for System Administrators

1) Nmon

-> In general, systems administrators use top, sar (system activity reports) and other such commands to monitor the performance of various Linux sub-systems (CPU, memory, I/O, etc), and these commands are available in most Linux distributions. Why do we need to use so many commands, when one command can give a huge amount of information about a system’s performance? Yes, Nmon is an open source utility that provides system performance data on a single screen. Nmon stands for Nigel's performance monitor. It provides the data in two ways: 1) on-screen data that gets updated once every two seconds, and 2) exports the data to a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file for later analysis and plotting of graphs.

2) Rsyslog

->Rsyslog is a replacement for Syslog, and it offers many benefits over the other log servers (Syslog and Syslog-ng). Rsyslog collects and forwards the logs to a centralised server. It is the default log server for the latest versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, as well as many other Linux distributions. Maintaining a centralised log server is one of the primary requirements for most IT organisations and systems administrators. Log management helps to meet IT security audit and compliance requirements. Inadequate logging is also one of the areas of failure for the Payment Card Industry’s (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS).

3) Logstash

->Logstash is an open source tool for managing events and logs. It acts as a log analyser and runs on top of the centralised log management server. You may enable logging to track each and every system activity, especially on production servers, and you may do the same on all the production servers deployed in your infrastructure. So a huge amount of logs are generated and all are forwarded to the log server based on your configuration.
Within the generated logs, tracing a particular event is a very tedious job for a systems admin. Logstash makes the systems admin's job a lot easier by parsing logs based on a requirement and generating a report. You can send logs from Rsyslog, Syslog and Syslog-ng server to the Logstash server for analysis. I would like to mention another log analyser tool called Octopussy, which is also an open source tool and worth a try.

4) Git

->Git is an open source distributed version control system for small and large projects. This tool is used by both systems administrators and developers. Git has received a lot of attention in the open source world and I just want to make sure the tool is added to my list.

5) Puppet

->Puppet is an open source configuration management tool. Most of the systems admin's tasks are repetitive and
boring. So automating these is the only way to accomplish them quickly. Automation also helps in avoiding manual
configuration errors. As I mentioned earlier, configuration is the most important task for systems administrators. I have selected Puppet among all other configuration management tools as it is one of the best adopted by many IT organisations and cloud solution providers. It helps systems administrators to deploy the custom configuration in a number of systems and maintain it throughout the life cycle.

6) OCS Inventory NG

-> OCS Inventory NG, which stands for Open Computers and Software Inventory Next Generation, is an open source solution for managing IT assets. Most of the time systems administrators run around to collect IT asset information reports when there is an IT audit. This tool helps them to discover all the devices connected to the network and to collect the inventory of software and hardware components installed on a system. It is also capable of deploying software and configuration scripts on a system.

7) RackTables

-> RackTables is an open source tool that is used as a data centre asset management system. Usually, data centre assets are tracked in spread sheets by the systems admin or management team. Maintaining all the assets in a spread sheet and generating a report based on needs is a cumbersome task. RackTables is a tool that is handy when creating the data centre rack layout and for document network devices, servers and other components installed in a rack. It also helps to track IP address space. By looking at the rack layout, you can easily make out the remaining space left on it and generate reports.

8) Clonezilla

-> Clonezilla is open source software for disk imaging and cloning. This tool helps systems administrators in system deployment, bare metal backup and recovery. Cloning is one of the easiest ways to take backups of a particular partition or an entire disk, and it also helps to restore it. Two flavours of Clonezilla are available—Clonezilla Live and Clonezilla SE (server edition). Clonezilla Live is suitable for a single machine backup and restore. Clonezilla SE is for massive deployment. Clonezilla supports Linux, Windows and other operating systems, and a wide variety of file systems.

9) SystemRescueCD

-> Nowadays the bootable CD/DVD ISO of most Linux distributions has an option to boot the system into recovery/
rescue mode in case of system failure. Though we have a rescue option available in CD/DVD ISO, SystemRescueCD brings more valuable tools to repair the corrupted system. SystemRescueCD is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM and USB stick. It’s for administering or repairing your system and restoring data after a crash.

10) Ntopng

->An important routine task of a systems admin is monitoring network traffic and keeping it controlled. Ntopng provides network traffic data of the active hosts and sorts the traffic according to different protocols. It is an open source tool and the next generation version of the original Ntop. It provides a nice Web interface to navigate all the information.

Why It Is Beneficial To Opt For Customized Drupal Website

Drupal customization acts as the right impetus that brings various opportunities for you at the right point of time. If you are planning to take your online business to the next level to meet the market challenges, then you need to have a strong online presence that can withstand the latest trends. Being a powerful open source content management system, Drupal can offer you a highly-dynamic website that will give your business an extra edge over your competitors. Custom Drupal development allows the users to modify the site as per their specific requirements.

What Makes Drupal The Best Platform To Build Custom

 Designed Websites!

Numerous Features: Drupal CMS comes with a wide range of features, like RSS feeds, user account registration, maintenance, page layout & system administration customization, menu management and even more. These excellent features help you create all sorts of websites including single & multi-user blogs, simple sites, forums, brochure-ware, community websites, etc.

Related: Responsive Design for Your Business Website

Administrator Control: Drupal has an advanced administrator control with the options to set up new user accounts as well as user permissions. It provides easier administration with greater controls. The permissions can be designated in accordance with the role or group. Also, it offers fine-tooth comb-style that helps users in creating the content.

Organized Content: The ability to organize the content for recall or later use is one of the difficult parts for the various content management systems. Drupal software allows its users to categorize the content via path urls, build custom lists, link the content and create defaults.

Related: A Step By Step Guideline To Create Your Own Website

Advanced Tools/Templates: This robust CMS offers the elemental building of websites in the form of modules, where rules and content can be created quickly. It offers a numerous themes and templates to help you create simple to even more complex sites, eliminating the need to start from scratch. These pre-defined configurations or features help you create fairly complex sites quickly, allowing you to utilize your time in building extra features.

Enabling Users To Collaborate With You: Along with the user-friendly interface, Drupal has a great ability to publish socially. Drupal-based websites engage its users to contribute, while providing the administrator the ability to view, create, administer publish as well as control the social content, published on the site.

The Benefits That You Can Expect From Drupal Customization

If you want to own feature-rich website with complete flexibility and want to have a full control over your site, then Drupal customization is the best and the decisive choice. It allows you to create a highly-scalable and adaptable website that is satiated to meet your unique requirements. You can keep track of your site visitors and even restrict the unauthorized access to your website.

Unlike regular HTML websites, Drupal sites are comparatively easy to manage. You can easily maintain various Drupal features without technical expertise. 

It allows you to be upgrade Drupal-based site to the higher version easily and keeps you updated about the latest changes in the Drupal CMS.

Drupal customization offers incredible modules that you would like to incorporate in your website.

The custom sites involve high-quality JavaScript and CSS codes that ensure better performance of sites on the popular search engines resulting in better online visibility, improved traffic rates and thus, increased Return On Investment.

Customizing the Appearance of a Specific Node in Drupal 7

The customization we will be performing on the node in question is that it should only display its content and links to authenticated users. In other words, anonymous users will only be able to see its title but not content.

Here are the Steps to be Followed:

• navigate to your Drupal root folder.
• Go to sites --> all --> themes --> your theme folder. Here in my case, it is myzen.
• Search for node.tpl.php in templates folder. if you are using myzen theme, you'll not find node.tpl.php file inside templates folder. You have copy from zen (theme)--> templates folder to your theme's template folder.
• Next,open node.tpl.php file in you favorite editor.
• search for the code as shown in below screenshot:

• What we want to do is wrap the above code inside an if statement so that the resulting block looks something like the following:

• Now clear the cache and rebuild registry.
• To see if it's working or not , just log out from admin panel & visit the site.
• you will see only title of a node & you're done.