Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter–Issue #48

[ Thanks to Phil
Lavigna for this link. ]

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              Issue #48    Thursday,  27 June 2002

Welcome to the Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter -- dedicated to 
keeping you up-to-date with the latest Mandrake-related news & info.

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This Week's Summary: MandrakeSoft Wins Contract with French Gov't; 
Mandrake in the News; Financial Corner; Important Updates for Apache 
and OpenSSH; Business Case of the Week; Website News; Headlines from 
MandrakeForum.


Top Story
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MandrakeSoft to provide Linux software to French government.
MandrakeSoft has been awarded a contract to provide Linux software and 
related services to an increasing number of French government agencies. 
The adoption of Mandrake Linux is expected to have a powerful impact in 
helping to increase the quality of government while also providing an 
important boost in status to MandrakeSoft.

The UGAP contract is guaranteed for a two-year period. UGAP is the 
French procurement agency for more than 28,000 public establishments. 
The agency also provides services to private corporations that have 
public service missions. UGAP works with public establishments (such as 
schools, universities, town halls, research groups, etc.) to reduce 
costs by offering large-volume purchasing and by providing access to 
special products & services with partners such as MandrakeSoft.

Read the complete announcement.


Mandrake in the News
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Newsforge.net -- Mandrake on Microtel systems at Walmart.com soon.
"Keep your eye on Walmart.com for new Microtel systems bearing the 
Mandrake logo. The systems will sell alongside the newly announced 
Lindows-based PCs, say sources. And continue to look for more online 
retail envelope-pushing from Wal-Mart's online wing, of all places."

Slashdot also covered the story:
"Here's a story from NewsForge: 'MandrakeSoft CEO Jacques Le Marois 
confirms the news this morning, and company spokeswoman Margaret 
[Waples] says, while a contract with Microtel has not been finalized, 
the company is working on getting Mandrake certified to run like 
clockwork on the Microtel systems. [Waples] is hopeful that the dotted 
line will be signed and PCs up for sale by the end of next week.'"


Financial Corner
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Consolidated results for October 2001-March 2002 are now online.

MandrakeSoft's special warrant operation (BSA) is on its final track -- 
only 15 days remain to purchase the new company shares. Subscriptions 
are only valid upon receipt of payment, so don't delay if you are interested.


Important Updates for Apache and SSH
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All Mandrake Linux users are urged to update their Apache installations 
immediately. A recently discovered vulnerability can be used to exploit 
vulnerabilities that are unrelated to Apache on the local system, 
and potentially allow 'root' access to an intruder.

All versions of Apache prior to 1.3.26 and 2.0.37 are vulnerable to 
this problem. MandrakeSoft has provided patched versions of Apache to 
correct this vulnerability. This update is essential and should be 
performed immediately. Read the complete advisory.


OpenSSH updates available.
Updates are available for OpenSSH which introduces a new capability 
called privilege separation (the server binds as root, but does 
everything else unprivileged). This means that if a remote exploit 
appears in sshd, it will have limited access to the system as the sshd 
user, which is conveniently chrooted away. This update should be made 
immediately. Read the complete advisory.


Business Case of the Week
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NetPlus OOD - Mandrake Linux gives us what we need plus much more.
A Bulgarian Internet Service Provider implemented Mandrake Linux 
8.1 to replace their NT server stations. The Mandrake systems have 
proved to be stable, reliable and extremely functional.

NetPlus Manager/Administrator Vesselin Markov adds: "Why Mandrake Linux?
Mandrake Linux gives us what we need plus much more. Including tons of 
useful applications, office suites for everyday use, supplementary 
software. We take full advantage not only from Linux' server 
capabilities (bind, postfix, ftpd, ipv6 gateway, apache, netfilter), 
but it's on our desktops too, utilizing the power of KDE 3."

Every "bizcase" counts; please share your story by submitting it to 
MandrakeBizcases.com.


Website News
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MandrakeSecure.net -- Using OpenLDAP For Authentication.
"User authentication for logins is generally a no brainer. You setup 
users on the local system and off you go... nothing to it. However, if 
you're on a LAN and you want to have a centralized 'repository' of 
users, you will likely be looking at some method of distributing user 
information across the LAN..."

MandrakeUser.org -- New & updated pages.
Updated articles on X Setup Troubles (more potential error scenarios, 
bit about third party drivers) and Tweaking X (cleanup, hardware tips, 
bit about alternative windowing systems).


Headlines from MandrakeForum
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Downloading Large Files in Linux.
If you've ever had a problem when downloading large files with a web 
browser, this article & user comments provide many helpful tips and 
suggestions.

MSN Messenger for Linux?
An anonymous Mandrake Linux user asks: "I was wondering if anyone knew 
of a MSN Messenger-like client for Mandrake 8.2 that I wouldn't have to 
do any weird tinkering with to make work."

Declare your 'wIndependence' this July 4th!
DesktopLinux.com yesterday proclaimed July 4th, 2002 to be the first 
annual wIndependence Day. How will you be celebrating?

Read these and other stories at MandrakeForum.