How to monitor user login history on CentOS with utmpdump

A very useful reading for CentOS admins http://xmodulo.com/2014/09/monitor-user-login-history-centos-utmpdump.html.

I was using `last` and `lastb` earlier but feels we can get more information with `utmpdump`. Thanks for Gabriel Cánepa for his article.

Some short notes from his article

utmpdump /var/run/utmp  - show who is currently logged on and what they are doing, and also by uptime to display system up time

utmpdump /var/log/wtmp -  show the listing of last logged-in users

utmpdump /var/log/btmp  - show the listing of last failed login attempts

These files are used in last and `lastb` commands to show details of login but by using utmpdump we get more flexibility for filtering

Upgrade PHP 5.3.3 to 5.4 in CentOS

Sometimes we need to upgrade PHP version inbuilt with the OS to newer version. We have been using CentOS for sometimes. It was requested to upgrade PHP to php5.4 in CentOS 6.5 and I have followed the below given link. We were able to upgrade PHP 5.3.3 to  PHP 5.4.32 (cli) (built: Aug 22 2014 07:07:38) smoothly.

If you have such requirement it is safe to follow the link http://www.shayanderson.com/linux/centos-5-or-centos-6-upgrade-php-to-php-54-or-php-55.htm

Even though it is bit old still works fine :-)