Welcome to Personal Home Page of Avijit Patra

technical profile

I am a RHCE ( redhat certifiled engineer  no. 804005061614203 ). To check click here.
I am a CCNA ( Cisco Certified Network Associate no. 388241610557CLDM ). To check click here.

I posses good knowledge of Linux and its administration (DNS/BIND, SENDMAIL, multihoming (non IP intensive http multihosting, sendmail and ftp multihosting), SSH, NIS, NFS, PPP, DHCP, Samba, Socks...)

Very good knowledge of TCP/IP, routing, firewalling, and overall network and web server security.

Excellent knowledge of Email with Exim 4, Exim 3, and Mailman. In Depth knowledge of mail protocols like SMTP, POP, and IMAP. Up-to-date knowledge about spam databases and spam filters like SpamAssasin.

Advanced routing on GNU/Linux, knowledge of Cisco routers and Switches.

SSHd administration, updation and configuration.

Managing different remote administration protocols like SSH, Telnet and rlogin, also developing undetectable remote login shell on different port.

BIND DNS Administration ( configuration, troubleshooting )

Virtual hosting with Apache ( configuration, troubleshooting )

Sendmail and Exim Administration ( configuration, troubleshooting )

Network analysis, design and deployment.

Remote and on-site GNU/Linux, Unix System Administration.

TCP/IP troubleshooting on GNU/Linux network.

DNS, IP addressing and inventory.

Monitoring tools like Nagios, Cacti etc.

Software: DOS through v 6.22, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP, and XP Professional, Windows 2003 Server, UNIX, GNU/Linux (RedHat 6.2-9.0, Redhat Enterprise Linux 3, 4 , CentOS 4.x, Mandrake 8.2-9.2 to latest Mandriva, Knoppix, Fedora Core etc), TCP/IP setup and configuration, Telnet, FTP, basic HTML authoring, Ethereal, mrtg , nagios and many more.

Have fundamental knowledge of Web Technologies : HTML, basic PHP, VB Script, FrontPage, Adobe PhotoShop, Search Engine Optimization techniques, Content Based Systems like Post Nuke, PHP Nuke, and Mambo, Drupal etc.

Known programming Languages: COBOL, FORTRAN, C, C++, Shell Script, basic Perl/PHP scripting.

Fixing and managing different Web Server Control Panels (eg. Cpanel/WHM, Ensim, Plesk, Helm, Alabanza, DirecAdmin, panel etc.) And configuring and handling web based billing application like Modern Bill, WHM Autopilot panel, Client Exec etc and customer support softwares like Kayako, Perl Desk, ClientExec, Help Center Live etc

Trouble shooting of Live Production Web Servers on the Fly.

Planning and implementing security packages suitable for web servers.

Optimizing and securing different services like – ProFTPD, Pure-FTPD, Apache, MySQL, SSH. POSTGreSQL etc.

Securing and optimizing the kernels remotely with different patches like GrSecurity, Open Wall etc.

Shell Programming for common maintenance task of the servers.

Shell programming for setting up and securing a production web servers. My script have been used to secure more than 150 custom cPanel web servers.

Technical Pre-Sales.

Worked with Zend Optimizer for fast PHP execution.

Managing the latest security issues for securing Web Server. I feel, the most challenging thing to do is to keep a web servers safe when there are more resources to make it down all the time.

Finding OS Bugs and fixing them with latest available patches. Creating statefull firewall with the help of GNU based softwares (ipchains and iptables).

Penetration Testing on Different Operating Systems with latest vulnerabilities and good understanding of overflowing and Denial of Service attack techniques.

Contacts with many security companies world wide to get latest information about bugs and also as part time security news reporter. Planning to lunch a informative vulnerability notification mailing list.

Contacts with large Web Space Providers and Server Providers companies running on huge backbone like The Planet, EV1, GNAX, LayeredTech etc.

Using NIDS (snorts+ acid) to empowering malicious attacks detection for Honeynet project.

Researching on different types of Distributed Denial of Service attack, which is very harmful to an organization.

Researching on Search Engine Optimization techniques and the changing behaviors of search engine algorithms for better Search Results.

I feel I have missed others that I cant remember right now :)

“Dogbert: I'm going back to my old job as a network systems administrator.
Dilbert: Why?
Dogbert: I'm attracted by the potential for reckless abuse of power.”
- Scott Adams

Association with Special Projects and current status ::


Have been managing a GNU/Linux based Network of a Local Net-on-Cable ISP, in Howrah.

Have been managing a PHP/MYSQL based Forum in www.linuxjunkies.in .

Have started a project http://www.linuxtraining.co.in this targeted to teach novice users/students.

Have trained the Indian Army Officials in the Eastern Command, Fort William, Calcutta on the C-DAC www.cdacindia.com  course on Networking, GNU/Linux Networking and Router and Switch Configurations.

Have been giving free classes to teach newbies about the Linux, Networking fundamentals and implementations, OS fundamentals, data structure, Computer Architectures and c/c++ etc.

Have been working as a senior admin of Assuredhost.Com.

Have been working as a CTO of a reputed Turkish Web hosting and Dedicated server provider company. (Sorry there is a NDA , can not disclose the name).

Have worked as a TIER 3 Level 1 system administrator of Surfspeedy.com.

Have worked as a TIER 3 Level 1 System Administrator for a reputed Data Centre Managed.Com.

Have worked as a consultant System Administrator of premiere Australian e-mail service provider Mailshield.Com.Au.

Have worked as a TIER 3 Level 1 System Administrator for TomSyer.Net.