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Linux Software

Salon Switches to Linux 59

Posted by CmdrTaco from the aint-that-nifty dept.
Smasher writes "The redesigned, more ambitious incarnation of Salon is now "completely rebuilt" around Linux and Apache. This is a great boost--Salon is a very popular site, and this gives Linux even more exposure to the mainstream. " We see Salon articles regularly on these pages. Glad to see them take the plunge. Update: 04/05 10:17 by CT : here's a news.com story on the same thing.
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Salon Switches to Linux More

Salon Switches to Linux

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  • Oh yeah... thanks
  • When did that happen? The letter from the editor is by some Talbot character...

    I knew Michael couldn't take Bill for long.
  • Hm, and nobody runs mission critical applications on Linux, eh? I wonder what constitutes a mission-critical app for a online magazine. Wait! Don't tell me! I know this one...

    Have to take this to those jackoff consultants I saw here a while back offering a security blanket to any company that moves over to Linux.

    ----

  • Welcome to the trial by fire, noobie. =)

    G'luck with Linux, it's kind of hard to use when your boss starts looking for reasons not to use linux (so they don't get fired when you can't blame tech support =)
  • Added to the above good advice:

    * Get and install Abacus sentry - sits on ports and automatically dumps bad guys' IP's in hosts.deny

    * If you can, scrounge up an old 486 w/ a NIC and install Trinux to monitor, scan your network. Nice tool that runs in RAM from two floppies; this is cool 'cause you don't need to frig w/ the hdd or installed OS.

    * Subscribe to the bugtraq mailing list.

    * Read the comp.security.unix newsgroup

    * Install and run COPS

    HTH
  • According to = in lynx:

    Linkname: Salon.com
    URL: http://www.salon.com/
    Charset: iso-8859-1 (assumed)
    Server: Apache/1.3.3 (Unix) mod_oas/4.63

  • Here are a few things you could do for starters:

    • keep track of the errata on Red Hat's web pages
    • edit /etc/inetd.conf and remove anything you don't use
    • lock down access to the remaining stuff that you do need (probably just ssh, maybe NTP and other bits and bobs too) using hosts.allow and hosts.deny
    • note: ssh. Don't let your passwords float around over the net in plain text.
    • install tripwire or similar
    • arrange for your syslog output to go to a secure host (or perhaps a printer -- old skool, but an FX80 is dirt cheap & gives a pretty much hack-proof record of the system log)
    • run SATAN or similar to check for vulnerabilities
    • make plans for emergency restore -- you do have backups, right?
    • get & configure a firewall if you haven't already got one
    • change your passwords often, but not regularly, and use cracklibs to make sure they're not trivially guessable. Change passwords whenever an employee leaves.
    • last but definitely not least, go and buy `practical Unix security', or similar, and read that too. There's probably a FAQ out there about this sort of thing as well: post the URL here when you find it....

    --
    W.A.S.T.E.

  • Salon is typically Linux-friendly, so I doubt it.

  • No- how do they suck? ;)

    ===
    Old Fart!!! Of tha SENIOR DADS!!!!!
  • Create hoopla about switching to Linux or write up a prophetic vision on Linux, get an article slot on /., and watch your readership increase by 23%. WooHoo!
  • Anyone care to place bets on exactly how long the MSN logo stays on the front page? I'd guess less than a day...
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • what on earth is mod_oas?
  • Hotmail, on the other hand, provides a good example of what happens with Mickeysludge gets its hands on an already WORKING Unix site. Ever since its mail headers starting reading 'Mickeysludge Exchange' it's been damn near worthless. They must be trying to get the main servers over onto IIS again too... it's been dog slow and virtually unusable for 2 days now.

    Hotmail should be used as a case study on how your high volume site will tank if you use Mickeysludge products instead of more open systems.

    And yes, I do realize Hotmail does not run on Linux... in did, however, used to run on Solaris boxes and a Unix mail system before Billy got his meathooks on it.
  • CNN is an all-Solaris/Netscape site. We're pretty much tied to both by our choice of ad server technology: we use Netgravity, which doesn't support Linux and uses the NSAPI interface.

    Like most large entities, CNN tends to be pretty conservative in how they use technology. We support over 150 million hits on an average day; over 500,000 hits a minute at our highest peaks. I wouldn't say at all that you couldn't do that with Linux or Apache, but I would say that I wouldn't try switching just to be fasionable. When you're running at those volumes, you have to be careful in how you make changes.
  • The VP quoted in the News.com article - Chad Dickerson - used to work for cnn.com.

    Chad didn't work in the group doing the cnn.com server management, but he did hopefully absorb a few lessons about how to run a high-volume reliable web site. (The first lesson he absorbed was 'Get rid of NT', so he apparently learned something.)

  • I'll guess longer. Microsoft spreads money around to all types; MSN is advertising to get a certain deoographic, not as a statement.

  • Any major technology cutover is going to come with glitches.

    I'm a long-time listener of NPR, and a few weeks back I heard a screw-up the likes of which I hadn'd heard before. Linda Werthheimer was doing the "billboard" - the little 60 second piece at the top of the hour where they hype the stories coming up in the next hour. She appeared to have completely lost her place, to the point where she just had to stop talking and left about 20 seconds of dead air, which is unheard of on national radio or TV.

    At the end of the next week, they made some reference to a technology changeover, which made Linda's screw-up make sense; I'm guessing she was trying to read some text off some electronic display, and the whole thing went haywire.

    In any case, technology of this sort is very difficult to completely shake out with a live-fire test. Salon will have problems; their job is to make sure the problem are annoyances rather than complete failures. Assuming they can do that, these initial problems will be forgotten by most people.
  • Doesn't ring a bell. All the work on the CNN site infrastructure - servers, networks - is done by CNN internal staff.

    It's possible some outside group helped produce the content for some part of the CNN sites. That I don't know about.
  • If you're a public site, the other thing you can do is put the Linux boxes behind a router or firewall and block ports that the public doesn't need to get at. If you're running a web service, there's very little beyond port 80 that you must let people see.
  • Apparently cnn didn't listen:

    GET / HTTP/1.0
    Host: www.cnn.com

    HTTP/1.0 200 OK
    Server: Netscape-Enterprise/2.01

    I doubt that cnn is running the Linux version of Netscape ES.

  • ... according to their web-site.

    Surely some mistake?
  • Salon is an independent company started by several ex-print journalists.

    Slate is a wholly owned venture of Microsoft (actually, MSN, iirc).

    Slate is infamous for misjudging the net, e.g. believing they could charge "bo koo" subscription rates to end-users the way a print mag does. (Just one more Redmond misstep.) Salon, OTOH, has been pretty good at keeping its fingers on the zeitgeist of the net.
  • This is good news... Salon is popular, and a high profile switch from NT to Linux like this would be VERY good advertising, IMHO. BTW, anyone know if it get more than 1 million hits?? This would help debunk claims that Linux is not used for high-traffic sites (and no, Slashdot does not count, IMHO, with only 640,000 hits).
  • Isn't it odd that MSN would support Salon?

    After all, Salon is wiping up the floor with MS'
    own (highly-funded) Slate... I guess MS will try
    that "embrace and smother" act in any arena!

    This is kind of like Best Buy supporting DIVX. Oh
    wait, that already happened...

    I hope their new OS lives up to everyone's
    expectations...
  • Ok so can somebody list the security holes for default RH5.2.

    I administer a Website running linux (RH 5.2) and have been worried about security. I know this is off topic, but it is probably very important for a large number of /. readers.

  • CNN (Score:1)

    by pwb ( 14817 )
    A local company I interviewed with implied they helped set up the CNN site. Have you heard of Persimon IT?

  • I've had Salon's technology section [salon.com] bookmarked for weeks; pretty good stuff, and excellent free/OS coverage. But this (Tuesday) morning, I'm seeing a bunch of broken links. (It was okay Monday, when they debuted the "new look".) Disappointing to say the least.
  • Salon is owned by Microsoft, right? This is a smart move: they switch to Linux just to later switch to Win2000 Server when it will be available in October. And do you know what they will say? That Linux was not fast, not an industry leader, not stable,... Pass the word now before it's too late.
  • A simple solution would be to try all of the obvious and not-so-obvious holes that are normally in red hat systems, and see if they work. If they do, write them and tell them how to fix it. Isn't that the essence of the open source community?
  • "Salon magazine has been reborn as a round-the-clock network of Web sites."

    I really hope they don't mean to become a spread-thin portal site. If they can provide all this content without losing their "independant" feel I'll rest easy. If, however, they become indistinguishable from go.com and all the rest, the web will have lost one of its most professional _and_ independant voices.
  • Somehow I just posted to the wrong article....sorry
  • It's nice to see people argue over gui's. A couple of years ago, all the choices we had were OS/2, Mac, or Windows on a PC. I think that both KDE and Gnome are a step in the right direction. I currently use KDE on my Slackware machine and Gnome on my Redhat machine. I have found that I get more done in KDE, but I am drawn to Gnomes themes and pretty face. I think that KDE is currently more functionality complete but I think gnome is currently adding functionality at a faster pace. It should be interesting to see the changes about a year from now......
  • David Talbot's been at the head of Salon forever. You've just gotten it confused with Slate, which is still a Microsoft joint. Always has been, and always will. Or are you just yanking my chain?

    What an interesting history for Salon. Weren't they Macintosh/Frontier when they started out? And after Dan Shafer left I think they started moving towards NT. But Linux/Apache, that's like a no-brainer. Hooray for the good guys.

  • Some web site is run on Linux and Apache. I imagine a time to come when this is no big news (or shouldn't it be today?)
  • Nothing to do directly with the move to Linux. We also rolled out a new publishing system to better automate uploads, and it needs some fine tuning.

    Should be fixed real soon.

    -jjr
  • mod_oas is an Apache module of our ad delivery engine, Open AdStream.

    Regards,
    Gil
    mailto:cto@realmedia.com
  • Is it me or they're faster already? I visited the site last night and I was bitching about how slow it was. Now it seems more responsive. Either that, or it's because I've been Linux brainwashed ;-).

    I wonder what kind of hardware they're running?

    Anyway, now we get an explanation of why they ran so many OpenSource articles...
  • Actually, that's 640,000 page views. Slashdot total HITS per day (which includes graphics and such) is around 3.6million+
  • The plunge into the Linux waters should be cool and refreshing. (I'm being very symbolic today.)

    Now, when we get a link to your site and the Slashdot effect kicks in, you will be able to cope with high demand gracefully.
  • ...unless it gets torn apart by hacker kiddies. I hope Salon has some very knowledgable people working for them because a default RH5.2 setup has more security holes than I care to think about. Not that NT is any more stable, but a "Popular web site switches to Linux, gets hacked" story would not be a good thing.
  • Salon says it made the move from NT to a customized version of the Red Hat 5.2 distribution of Linux "in order to support Salon.com's growing
    needs."

    "For a growing company like Salon, Linux is the best of all worlds," Chad Dickerson, Salon's vice president of technology, said in a statement.
    "It's a proven technology, it's low cost and high performance, and it's broadly supported. The robustness and stability of the Linux operating
    system make it ideal for mission-critical applications."

    [IDC crap snipped]

    Dickerson noted that Linux will offer Salon a "solid technical backbone" to support its move from a magazine format to a network of sites. Gartner
    Group analyst Tom Henkel said today that scalability and reliability are among Linux's advantages.

    Ring-a-ling!
    --
  • More exposure for Linux, and anything that gives Linux good, server-oriented exposure is a fabulous thing.

    Mayhap other large comapnies will take note and consider linux for their servers.
    "Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
  • They must be running that new MicroSoft Linux Distro. Look at their network sponser list... :)

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