Well, happy December and stuff!

First, some housekeeping details: you may have noticed that I don't update quite as often as in the past. I am no longer an officeholder at the Houston Area League of PC Users, but that organization continues improvement efforts and reorganization as we speak, or type (check their site for the latest).

Second, I continue to press onward with technological interests such as the open source movement, computer security, backup methodology, unusual internet content, publishing, et cetera.

Thirdly, I'll use this blog to prognosticate and pass on interesting tidbits to whomever reads this blog, as well as for my own use (as an online link repository, for example).

Upcoming topics here may include...

The Nmap book by the Nmap guy
BackTrack 4 final release changes and progress
Recent TRK changes and improvements
Adventures In Learning Perl (hopefully without attacking competing languages much)
Adventures In Deleted File Recovery (or Oops I Did It Again, and in a different oddball file format this time)

So stay tuned and let's see what I come up with.

I've made a momentous discovery.

Although I am mostly ashamed at having been talked into establishing a Facebook account, I have found something about that system that's actually socially redeeming. Somebody established "INTERCAL Enthusiasts" on FB. I'm not even a proper programmer and this is funny to me:

Here is the "Hello, world" program in INTERCAL:

DO ,1 <- #13
PLEASE DO ,1 SUB #1 <- #234
DO ,1 SUB #2 <- #112
DO ,1 SUB #3 <- #112
DO ,1 SUB #4 <- #0
DO ,1 SUB #5 <- #64
DO ,1 SUB #6 <- #194
DO ,1 SUB #7 <- #48
PLEASE DO ,1 SUB #8 <- #22
DO ,1 SUB #9 <- #248
DO ,1 SUB #10 <- #168
DO ,1 SUB #11 <- #24
DO ,1 SUB #12 <- #16
DO ,1 SUB #13 <- #214
PLEASE READ OUT ,1
PLEASE GIVE UP

For more of whatever the above is, go to

The Intercal Place

, which is outside FB and should be given the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Yes, from OUR Congress.

Tech Fest A Resounding Success

About a half-dozen denizens of Hal were present at the "users groups" table that Tech Fest afforded us, and the one other group that showed, the Houston Java Users Group. As for us, we got over six sheets' worth of email contacts and I'd guess that it totals to over 100 people expressing interest (Chris or Jim Ward may have the sheets and therefore could give an accurate count).

The scene was mostly .net developers but about 20% of the subjects were applicable to other things. It was well attended by head hunters, too; I'll be there next year.

NEWS

HAL-PC FUNDRAISER POSTPONED
Due to various time constraints, the Sept. 7th BBQ has been put off at least 6-8 weeks. Stay tuned to the Hal-PC site for re-scheduling notices.
LINUX 101 ROCKS YOUR SOCKS
I dropped into the Linux 101 SIG (special interest group) meeting after the executive committee broke up for the night (and John Davis and me had finished talking about the Houston Punk scene) and saw that they are drawing about the healthy half-dozen or so that my SIG used to draw (I think they're doing OK as well). And I'm not just pimping them because they (Linux 101, 1st Tue. of Month, 7pm, Hal-PC) looked at the latest Linux Mint. But that helped.

TECH FEST at Univ. of Houston

Hit this link for what's happening on September the 26th. Seminars!
Presentations! Job and app training possibilities! More geekiness! Such a deal.

BBQ MADNESS

On Labor Day, the Hal-PC folk would like to see you at the Volunteer Appreciation / Fund Raising Event! It's open (to other than registered volunteers with enough time logged) to all for a $15 donation that will help upgrade computers and such. Hours (for eating) are 1-6pm. Time to geekily parTAY. Check the link for directions to the Galleria-area HQ building.

New HLUG SIG Leader Elected

As I understand it, we have a new leader: Ron Lyle! Congratulations to he who stepped up to the plate. An election was held and Ron won (this would have been last Saturday; I was... let's just say "on call"). So under Ron's direction, meetings continue as the masthead of this blog states: every second and fourth Saturday, 2pm at Hal.

In other news, it's been suggested to me (by Jim Ward) that the Presidency of HLUG, as opposed to the Special Interest Group leadership position for the scheduled time slot, become a separate position (I think he had in mind an emeritus capacity). It seems doable to consider me a publicity figurehead at least in order to continue with this blog and other promotional activities, in spite of my employer's shift changes and their effects, which take me out of the scheduled flow. Also, having a President (in addition to a SIG Leader) maintains a connection with the structure of HLUG that originally merged with Hal about ten years ago; continuity is good.

I agree to such an arrangement if it's amenable to the new leader and the membership. Also, I'll be describing/pimping/reviewing the meetings here into the future (and naturally able to review something when I am not called upon to work Saturday and therefore could show up at the meeting).

See some of you at the Hal Board meeting tomorrow night.

Well Howdy

Labor Day BBQ Plans Forming:
Watch the Hal-PC home page for details on the upcoming feedfest. It's a volunteer appreciation event and is being put together as we speak (type).

Saturday HLUG meet:
The 22nd is the second meeting date of the month and so far, there's no new President. I may be able to make it in order to help facilitate an election but if I'm not there, I give my blessing to a quorum present. Here's my suggestion for upcoming topics that I think would make good presentations ---

VMware
Virtual Box
VMware VS Virtual Box
IPv6
current developments in TRK (may have an expert for this)
current developments at insecure.org (I'm looking into this)

More Thoughts On Unconfiguration (if that's a word):
Previously (under the rubric "Off-Topic") I posted on Mac OS 9.1's ability to wipe settings and prefs in a way that distantly suggested sys-unconfig in Solaris. The distant relationship is that one is able to change some things without reinstalling the whole shebang (which can take many, many hours with some of Sun's products as we know). Can someone at a future meeting tell me if this is now possible in some Linux or other? I don't mind admitting that I don't know.

Mac OS9 Reinstalls: It may seem off-topic...

...and on a Linux basis, it is. But I dabble in all kinds of systems and I just discovered something that might be useful to one or two of you.

PROBLEM:
You have a late-1990's-era Mac (that you aren't using to run NetBSD or FreeBSD or some Linux coded to those processors) with OS9 or 9.1 and you forgot the password. Rather than research which file the password's in (which is probably visible using the version of Norton Utilities or the equivalent app for that OS), you elect to reinstall. But this wipes your unsaved files about which you may have forgotten, as well as preferences, settings, drivers, scripts, OS upgrades and apps, all of which will need to be relocated and installed. How to avoid this?

SOLUTION:
Don't worry about it.

It just so happens that the installer for OS 9.1/9.2 (and maybe further down... can't remember) has a curious set of options under the button labeled so. Using the "Options" button and several other checkboxes that come into play, you get three install choices. You could (in the presence of a pre-existing OS) reinstall:

* Without checking the "clean install" box
* With a check in the "clean install" box
* By selecting the "erase disk" choice (thus making a "clean install" check irrelevant)

Apparently these (ordered) options produce the following results:
* preserves settings and preferences
* wipes setting and preferences; leaves everything else
* bare-metal install - all user-added material lost

I tried the first option and still got the login for the password I couldn't remember. I then tried the second option since I wanted to avoid the third. The result of the second - amazingly - was that I was presented with the opportunity to set a new password, and upon getting in, saw all the apps, files and settings that I'd been afraid I'd lose, and in the places I'd originally put them.

[My guess is that the first two options address only the System Folder and that the third option covers the whole disk. Kinda almost reminds me of sys-unconfig in Solaris.]

Love Macs or hate them, there's a rationale to Macs that once learned, you can repair to and count on, since that unchanging rationale makes its own internal sort of sense. And here comes my theory about the relative business models: that's because there's time to write things that way, as long as you're not part of some organization that aims at being the low-cost leader via saving money on allowed programming hours, then pressing users into service as beta testers... but that would be baseless supposition, right?

LOTS OF NEWS ABOUT HLUG

1.Last Saturday's Show: The Recent BSD Activity
2.Last Saturday's Show: Synfig's Capabilities
3.The New President Of HLUG

The show of Saturday the 8th saw me get not only the announced topic out of the way, but two others that I'd been wanting to bring up. BSD's movements of late constituted the two unknowns; the announced subject was (at Russell's suggestion) something about Synfig, a tool that could become almost as big as Open Office – at least for the animation community.

The two big differences to my mind between Linux and BSD (the movement beginning in 1993 (93-FreeBSD, 94-NetBSD, 95-OpenBSD, roughly) would be that the license is different, and secondly that the product orientation is way different. By orientation, I mean that the maintainers of these distributions seem to concentrate upon server use and if one wants a full-feature desktop, one can install it oneself. There might be a change in this orientation of theirs in the wind; the first reason that I believe this is the following offering.

PC-BSD is a distribution that takes FreeBSD and puts KDE on top of it. It's a three-CD load and I can't say too much about it because I tried to load the thing onto four different machines at my house and nothing took it. I didn't even get to command line; the install froze about halfway through. Now, one attendee said that he'd gotten it to load in a VM but I'm about ¼ Luddite, so I'm behind on getting any of those virtual products working at my place. I'll complain that any distro that can't load on my stuff needs work at the installer, but that may be just me...

Next reason I think BSD's low opinion of desktop products may be changing is something that I did get going, namely BSD Anywhere. This is a live-CD-only distro that failed on a few of my machines (notably the dual core) but worked on a Dell P3 550mhz with 512 ram from 2002. It's an OpenBSD product running Enlightenment as a desktop and includes a recent Firefox and Thunderbird load (visible on an CDE/NeXT/OSX-like dock at the bottom center of the screen) and although it was a little slow at surfing on this old of a computer, it was serviceable. The really sneaky thing about this distribution was the fact that the GUI (Enlightenment) didn't even list one tenth of the available applications! And if you went to the .org's website, the easily located list under “software” revealed the presence of such tools as netfwd, hydra, iperf, nmap... the list went on and on. I had no idea that this distro qualified as a Security Distribution like Back Track, but it does. Apparently, command-line only versions of the “stealth” apps are the ones included...

Synfig is a tool on which I am absolutely incompetent, but by loading it onto my Core2duo, I could at least prove that it could be installed on Fedora 11 and could run fairly well. This 2-D cartoon illustration system was best demonstrated by the demo reel at the website, but having the tool installed and running allowed my to show what a great job the .org did in putting together the help Wiki. Never liked those things before but this one's slick. And Synfig shows yet again what the Open Source movement can do. Fifty years ago only big animation houses like Disney could afford to do art like this. Today? The capability is free to all. Don't miss the demo movie: they do a scene that mimics the film "Ice Age" perfectly.

OH YES... one little program note. I'm no longer President of HLUG since my employer will now have me on rotating Saturdays, throwing 50 percent of meeting dates askew, so that puts me out. I'll still be attending meetings when possible, plus attending the Wednesday workshops and doing all the Board of Directors stuff. It's just that the conflict with this particular office can't be solved. So be thinking of who you want as President and I'll help as and when I can.

Also, as HLUG moves into the future, I'll note its activities at this blog as well as whatever interests me personally (which I do anyway). My interest in promoting Linux is the same, and so mandates spreading the word about HLUG and Hal-PC in any event.

Hello Again And Welcome

Last Saturday's presentation on Subversion, the ubiquitous version control system, consisted in large part of a history of the entire issue of such systems' necessity. How does one organize a project to write a multi-thousand-line program using more than one programmer? As long as one person's writing the program, the problem never comes up. But hand the job to a department of two or more programmers and one needs a way to synchronize the effort.

It occurs to me that the two systems we've examined in detail so far typify the two large conceptual categories of the vast enterprise of software development. Whereas the open source model (illustrated by the development of Linux, for instance) might logically benefit from a decentralized system (like Bazaar), the closed source or corporate model might logically benefit from a centralized system (like Subversion). Ed suggested that the differences between the two categories of systems were less serious than many supposed, and that the considerable configuration options in both were sufficient to accommodate most situations. Furthermore, the claim that one system ate up storage space at a greater rate than the other was shown to be possible in both types, depending upon configuration and one's perspective regarding client or server.

Oops. My tendency to oversimplification is making Ed sound like the fence-sitter that I am, rather than the advocate he may prefer to be... but I'm in a hurry.

Coming up two weeks from last Saturday (August 8th, second Sat. of the month) will be my presentation on an animation program that runs under Linux. Which one? Ah, that would be telling. Stay tuned.

Again, Version Control! (anybody get the Harlan Ellison reference?)

I'm well aware that in the world of version control systems, there's a decentralized model, of which Bazaar is a worthy example. We had a good presentation (click on "presentations" at left) from Russell Adams not long ago regarding the broad version control picture and that particular application. There is another perspective, though, being the centralized organizational approach, of which Subversion is a worthy example, and we'll have a show on that program at our next meeting (July 25th).

One reason for doing a Subversion show (in addition to having competent personnel to deliver it) is that nothing succeeds like success. Subversion is one of the leading version control schemes in IT today, and probably the most popular one in the open source movement right now. So we'll give it its due.

THIS SATURDAY rocked.

Although the show on the 11th may not have been quite tight, the show checked off several subjects I've been keen upon. First of all, I got the core 2 duo running and showed off several nice things:

FEDORA 11: My over-the-wire upgrade from 10.3 to 11.x actually happened. I'd tried that twice before (in Mandriva/Mandrake and in Ubuntu 7.something) and blew away the MBR, the file system, everything. But going to Fedora 11 live ACTUALLY WORKED. The download and reboot/rebuild took about 8.5 hours, but what the heck.

BACK TRACK 4 pre-final release: The live DVD running KDE 4.whateversthelatestversion showed off its newfound stability, as well as the formidable arsenal of tools to do everything from network enumeration to penetration testing to password recovery to cisco-specific analysis and so on.

URBAN TERROR 4: A game based on the open-sourced Quake 3 engine and FREE, I showed off (and on Fedora this time, as opposed to Linux Mint, which I usually run in mixed company) to the small but teeming crowd how fast I could get my posterior handed to me.

There was more, but you had to be there.

UP NEXT: ED ON SUBVERSION (another perspective on version control)!

Developments

First of all, the next presentation will give Russell a rest, consisting as it will of myself delivering the long-rumored ripoff of Linux Journal articles (one featuring references to BackTrack, as seen at HLUG presentations recently, and which we'll revisit a bit). We'll also snatch one or two looks at the way they do the "Linux Minute" on their website. This will happen on Saturday, July 11th at 2pm, at the Hal-PC HQ.

Second of all, Russell has uploaded the .pdf of his presentation slides from last Saturday's Linux accounting show, findable at the most recent entry under "presentations" at adamsinfoserv.com.

Third of all, some things being discussed for upcoming shows include a regex review and whatever we can talk Katrina into showing us before she's on assignment again. Mr. Spotswood also is continuing to test various open-source programs and he should have some comment on them before too long.

For Your Information

HLUG member Robert Spotswood's article on antivirus programs has been updated with more results info HERE.

Confirmation

Russell Adams has confirmed the Linux accounting show (specifically, his approach to it) for the 27th of this month!

News

My thanks for the votes last meeting, regarding which something like this happened:

ME: "Since it's June, shouldn't there be a..."
RICK: "Nominate chair."
LIGHTSEY: "Second."
CARLILE: "Vote carries."
ME: "... election?"

And that's about the way it went. Moving right along to my continuing conspiracy to get people other than myself to do presentations...

We still have access to Russell Adams, not yet back up East on assignment (report on his Version Control show below) and it looks like we can have him do something on accounting in Linux (which he does, via a text-based scheme). How many times have you suggested Linux only to hear "I'm tied to Microsoft because of Quick Books"? I realize we aren't all accountants or consultants, but such a presentation would break new ground, plus viewers of the video file could benefit.

This would occur on the upcoming fourth Saturday the 27th at the usual 2pm, at the Hal-PC headquarters. I'm 95% sure that a consulting gig has not grabbed him yet for this date.

Control Of Versions Deluxe

Version Control is a matter on which I've wanted to have a presentation for some time, and we got someone to do it - and indeed, someone who uses it regularly. Mr. Russell Adams presented a general introduction to the subject (we all use version control - I make documents titled by date all the time), then mentioned the differing organization methods (centralized like Subversion vs. decentralized like Git and Bazaar). He favors Bazaar; check on his site under "Presentations" for the slides he used (created in Org-Mode, of course...!).

NEW PROGRAM ADDITION

Since Russell Adams is not on assignment at the moment, he can deliver us the following presentation:

VERSION CONTROL SYSTEMS!
NEXT MEETING!
ON THE THIRTEENTH!!!

He'll give a short history of version control programs so that the lesser-initiated will be aware of the problems that such schemes address. Then he'll give an in-depth description of his preferred program (one of the distributed-model ones as opposed to the central-server-model ones, not that I'm slamming the latter category).

The Linux Journal tribute and article/idea ripoff program will move one meeting into the future.

NO MEETING ON THE 23rd (this weekend)

Due to the 3-day weekend, there will be no meeting on 5/23/09 (I wish Hal-PC had a more predictable schedule about holidays). Here are the upcoming dates and topics:

JUNE 13th: LINUX JOURNAL ripoff day (coverage of several of their recent major articles)
JUNE 27th: OPEN SOLARIS AND ITS SUB-DISTRIBUTIONS
JULY 11th: RECOVERING LOST DATA WITH TRINITY RESCUE KIT
JULY 25th: OPEN

A Totally Bangup Show

(...if I do say so myself)

On Saturday, 9 May of this year, it was revealed that I think that LinuxXP is the worst Linux distribution ever - except that I LIED. It really isn't.

But all this isn't false advertising because when I originally started kicking the tires on it about a month ago, that was my opinion THEN. Since then, I'm a little more sympathetic to the developer because it actually delivered on some of the promise of the concept. Also, leaving aside that there are more interesting things happening in Linux than this, I provided an historical service to the Linux community by focusing on this distro, since (evinced by web searches) there are some that think that this distro is a hoax. But it's true; a guy in Russia (where Russian versions are apparently selling for about 1700 rubles or 50 bucks American) decided to try to make Linux easier for Windows users by taking a copy of Linux and putting a custom GUI on top that looks like XP.

Basically this 2008 version (shareware 30 days) that I tested revealed itself to be a year-old copy of Fedora with the Gnome desktop running WINE underneath the GUI that offered stuff like XP-ish icons and a "Start" button in the lower left hand corner.

To its credit, WINE ran both the installers and the programs of several things I tested like WinRAR, Microsoft Encarta (failing at the point where it had to integrate with Windows Media Player, of course) and several archiving programs. No special button-pushing required: just plop in the CD, open the disc-looking icon and look around for something with a .exe on the end of it and click. And surprise: WINE was not slow! This test machine was a P3 550 with 458 on the RAM, built in Feb. of 2000 and it was perking along nicely. Whatever the objection to WINE (like your favorite program not showing up on the compatibility list yet), it's at least not slow in these latter years.

Courtesy of the Gnome crew, there was another concession to the Windows user, being a ripoff of "System Information", the convenient little report that tells about the OS build, hardware specifics, etc. The Gnome version was far more comprehensive than that in XP though, resembling the "Apple System Profiler" that some of you know well.

Although some things worked better than I've experienced in more than a few Linux-i (like super easy installation of Firefox plug-ins for Adobe stuff), LinuxXP is an example of a strategy whose time has probably passed. The other example of WINE reliance (Lindows/Linspire) I have no experience with, but five years ago it was persuasive that Linux was scaring Windows users since they had trouble finding basic controls. But today GUI development has converged so much that many things look like all the other examples in modern OS's. Maybe people are less scared of computing in general as well.

So there you have it. Next meeting (skipping one slot of course due to Memorial Day), I think I'll have another weirdo OS for you, BUT THIS TIME AROUND which may be relevant to your getting a job or something. Stay tuned...

Mini-Promo (for all Linux activity at Hal-PC)

Linux 101 - first Tuesday of the month at 7pm with Sibley Cooley. Basic tools and distributions.
Linux Workshop - every Wednesday from 6 to 9pm in the back lab. Bring your machine and we'll help with installs.
HLUG - two Saturdays a month (second and fourth) at 2pm, featuring a speaking presentation on a topic of interest.

The SANS Man

A local representative of SANS, Mike Pilkington, gave a sample module of his Wireless Security course at our last HLUG meeting. SANS is a group that gives computer administration and security classes nationwide and beyond, and from what I saw, at a high level of technical detail and competence. A highlight of the talk (for me at least) was when he used the venerable BackTrack 3 in the testing of various aspects of the local network. I was quite pleased that he did so noninvasively, so as to prevent anyone official from bursting into the room and demanding an explanation. Video of the talk should show up here before too long. Also, Mike's class, Security 617, is detailed here.

Next Meeting:
On Saturday, May 9 at 2pm at the Hal-PC offices, I'll deliver a demonstration of what I'll style THE WORST LINUX DISTRIBUTION IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. Airsickness bags will be provided.

THIS SATURDAY: Pen Testing DeLuxe

Mr. Mike Pilkington (teacher of an upcoming SANS mentor class) will address HLUG this Saturday at 2pm on wireless access point security. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're wondering why a Linux users' group would want to know about network security in the context of mostly making a bunch of Windows users happy. Here's two reasons:

First, networks largely feeding gobs of Windows boxes constitute the environment that Linux often finds itself in.

Second, Mike will demonstrate the "evaluation" of networks using various Linux-based doohickeys (if that's the way you spell the plural of 'doohickey'). Be there or be uninformed.

You Should Have Been There

So Katrina's presentation on the trinity of Trixbox, Vitelity and Lylix indicated how far we've come from the world of hard copper some of us used to know. An infrastructure that used to (and still could) run a company thirty to a hundred grand is now something you can have for about the cost of the support and the hardware. At the heart of open source PBX-alternative telephony is an app called Asterisk and it's free and well-supported. Features like "Place On Hold Forever" sold me instantly. There are even ways to program this system if you're hardcore about hitting back at phone solicitors.

This'n'll be hard to top. But next meeting will be the SANS man. Stay tuned.

Open Source Savings and WAP Situations

Here's an even NEWER schedule, since it's looking good for two, count 'em, two guest speakers at HLUG:

April 11th - Katrina the (OOPS - C++, not Java) Programmer on Linux Telephony
(specifically an open source PBX alternative that can save companies thousands)

April 25th - A Fortune 500 I.T. guy will give a talk on Wireless Access Point security largely from a Windows perspective. Why should we be interested? He uses BackTrack for testing, and better than me (although I do take credit for introducing that distro a few meetings ago).

May 9 - The World's Worst Linux Distribution
You have to come to the meeting to find out what it is... and watch it work. I'm using it on a daily basis. Airsickness bags provided.

May 23 - The Amazing Multi Distribution CD (although I already gave the talk to Helmut and a few others on the Wednesday after my car problem). Not all distros run on all machines but this is a pretty good scattershot approach...

Teaser

I might just have a schedule change for the 25th (fourth Sat.), since a guest speaker may just be able to do a show on WAP security. This would push the other shows later; Katrina's PBX alternative show will keep its slot. Stay tuned.

HEAVILY ALTERED Schedule For Presentations

Rick subbed for me due to car trouble (ask me about it later; it was really stupid) causing me not to make it to the presentation last Sat. First time in two years I blew it! Don't impeach me!

April 11th - Katrina the Java Programmer on Linux Telephony
I don't know anything about this subject, which is why she's giving the talk rather than me.

April 25th - The World's Worst Linux Distribution
(not in my opinion but probably in yours)

May 9th - The Amazing Multi Distro CD
SEE! HEAR! FEEL the power and incredibleness of NINE distros on one live CD.

---
As always, second and fourth Saturdays at 2 within the Hal-PC offices.

The Amazing Multiple Distribution

I don't EVEN believe it but I'm going to throw another new-distro show at you. This one's unprecedented. Suppose I told you that one could cobble together several TOTALLY UNRELATED distributions onto one live CD. Not DVD, CD. That would be nice, eh? Say, a security distro, a general use distro, then one with a bunch of media stuff, plus memtest-86 or some other tool. That's four distinct entities. Suppose I could show you a CD with considerably MORE THAN THAT on it?

And not only are they all crammed onto the (NOT DVD) CD, but that I have an i386-type laptop old and common enough that all the distros actually work and are OK to demonstrate on it? One review article of this collection disc that came up on a search consisted of about 40% complaints about what hardware platform the particular Linux distributions understood, and the reviewer had to hop from machine to machine to get his article done; not needed with my rig. I think his stuff was so new that neither Windows, Mac, Linux or whatever would be updated or drivered-up at press time.

Oh, yes. We'll see this on the 28th at 2pm, same bat time, same bat channel at Hal-PC HQ - barring preemption due to speakers' schedules, in which case we'd bump it one meeting. Plus we'll take a survey for what presentations people want to see in upcoming weeks. Oh, and I think it's a good idea to insert yet another continuing agenda item: we will henceforth brazenly rip off at least one Linux Journal article per meeting!

UPCOMING TOPIC:

THE WORLD'S WORST LINUX DISTRIBUTION

Airsickness bags will be provided. Stay tuned.

DOCUMENTATION of the Security Distro program

On Saturday (yesterday now) I gave rundowns of four fairly current Linux distributions on live CD's.

(By the way, I apologize for making light of the STD distro last entry. I expect to be blown off the air any hour now.)

These distros feature pre-installed security and forensics tools, some command-line and some graphical - and a few with options in both directions. FCCU (a Knoppix-based product from the Belgian Federal Crime Control Unit) and DEFT (a small but serviceable Xubuntu-based distro with a forensic or repair/recovery emphasis) were the first two, but the stars of the show were my personal favorite of the moment, Protech, and a tough contender, BackTrack.

Protech is based on Ubuntu and uses Fluxbox as a thin desktop environment, helping low-mem machines like mine. It has many well-known useful tools like filesnarf, wireshark, Metacoretex, kismet, gkismet, airsnort, cowpatty and so on. There's also a firewall (Bastille) included, THREE honeypots including La Brea, two kit finders (chrootkit and rkhunter) and sticks with the spreading and very considerate ethic of automajically ejecting your live CD during shutdown before reboot. This distro is also one of a growing group that (unlike live-only concepts such as STD, TRK and others) is written with the option of HDD install in mind. Protech (as well as BackTrack 3 mentioned next) want to be your desktop as well, not just a live CD. It's your choice.

BackTrack 3 (or try this link if needed) is the most current final version of this distro (with 4 out in either alpha or beta by now). It offers more of everything and is insecure.org's result for most popular Linux security distribution; it's the most comprehensive distro I've seen so far and its organization is clever. At least every category of tool is represented with multiple tool options in almost all. Some categories have over 50 options. Talk about a shortcut reload strategy - you'd spend a lifetime installing and updating individual tools otherwise. In addition to the usual crowd (the SleuthKit / Autopsy package, tinyproxy, truecrypt, nMap, Zenmap, TCPtraceroute, SNMPwalk and so on, there's an "archive" category which includes only one option. But it's an important one, one that I've harped upon for years, claiming that everyone should take note. It's a link to archive.org, the maintainers of a search function called the Wayback Machine (a reference to the original Rocky and Bullwinkle show). Need to research a web page no longer in existence? If you know the URL, just plug it in and Zap - there's multiple hits on the dates that archive.org recorded the contents. I've tried it on pages of my own. Your mileage may vary, but maybe they'll have snapshotted what you need.

To cinch the deal, BackTrack has a boot-up option offering two desktops: Fluxbox for low-mem situations and KDE 3.5 for the full-service customer (and in a light enough build to run well on a P3 866 with 256 on the ram). I'm sticking with Protech for the moment, but BackTrack may win me over.

More info to come on the show in 2 weeks (HLUG does presentation meetings on the second and fourth Saturdays, 2pm, at the HQ of the Houston Area League of PC Users).

Got Somethin For Ya

A few things are coming up in the future, like the Linux telephony subject and the rep-from-the-wonderful Linux Journal BUT FIRST let's look at this Saturday's 2pm show at Hal-PC: remember about a year ago when I did the show about Linux security distros? The stars of that show were STD and Hakin9 Magazine's yearly-or-so live CD. Well, there's two others that deserve a look - and not H-9's latest one, either. Although the version I showed last time (3.0, I think) was a crowd pleaser due to offering the KDE desktop with all its goodies, the latest version (3.1.2) is too heavy to run on my antique Louis XIV laptop. And STD offers many tools not updated in some years, plus is a bit scruffy in appearance. And we can't have that. So we'll move on to two other examples.

And I won't tell you which ones they are until you see them. Nyah nyah nyah. It'll be hard to guess since there are so many of these things, and as is often the case with OSS (open source software) security projects, many of these distros are out of date and reside in a Sargasso Sea of broken links. But here's a little help.

Clue: the first one will be one that claims to be the most popular security package going (and there may be more than several that make this claim).

Clue: the second one will be heavy on tools of a... suspicious nature, so I'll demonstrate it without using it online. It apparently is written by a couple of white hat penetration testers, but just in case that's a cover story I'll airgap the thing. To use it online (risking a few auto-updates) would only rile up Allan at the other end of the hall. Besides, due to the date and time of the event (plus location) he'd immediately know it was me. All told, this second specimen is the slickest thing I've seen so far, has a compact desktop option AND the tools are pretty current.

A possible extra will be two attempts at using a particular tool (often included in security distros) to do some data recovery, one attempt of which is guaranteed to fail. I can't resist putting you through this since failure is often instructive. BE THEREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Meeting, LAN thang and onward

Saturday's meeting concerned my look at the offerings of Linux Journal. The important thing to first note is that there's about a 35% lack of overlap in mag-vs-site material. There's considerable stuff unique to both publishing channels, so don't neglect either one. One thing you get on the website would be the video production known as the "Linux Minute", hosted by one of the editors. We played back the segment that IN ONE MINUTE demonstrated OpenSUSE's equivalent of what most of us do in the Debian world via apt-get, which would be several command line updating options, specifically Zypper. It's about as easy as apt-get and now allows me to avoid Yast or the Gnome updater, which use more memory than the machine I loaded Suse on can conveniently provide. Without another crash. My fault; I knew what I was doing when I loaded a modern OS onto a 9 year old computer. But now I can update faster and safer, thanks to Linux Minute via linuxjournal.com.

Playback would have been more elegant had I solved the screen resizing difficulty I often get with Hal-PC's equipment. Maybe I need to find the controls on my own (naturally) different desktop (we're dillitants in the club, constantly changing our machines in every way)...sp? Other things covered were our "favorite flag" command review feature, my common question of "does this job offer sound proper or are they scrambling to replace 4 or 5 walkouts?", and a pitch for membership and support for our venue organization, the venerable Hal-PC.

The LAN party was next and I got killed 313 times in Urban Terror, one of the games recently ported over which uses the Quake 3 engine. If my caffeinated excitement doesn't drive 'em away, this event should continue to pack 'em (or us) in for quite some time.

Up next on the roster of speakers will possibly be a certain Java programmer on internet telephony alternatives, a certain webmaster of a certain Linux magazine published locally, and possibly either Russell or me again on a subject to be concocted shortly.

Past And Future

Although my Mardi Gras parade prevented me from attending the paravirtualization show last Saturday, I have it on good authority that Mr. Lightsey provided a wonderful show. There's no way to prove it, however, since the video equipment wasn't present. However, it probably will be next time.

That will be Saturday Feb. the 28th at 2pm at the Hal-PC office and will feature me. Although contact has not yet been established with the Linux Journal staff to allow me to shanghai one of them for a presentation, I've gotta get something on soon regarding the stuff in their recent wonderful Security Issue (one back now). So I'll do it myself, covering at least six quite useful articles.

Plotting continues for the second Saturday in March, at which it is my wish that the programmer who knows about Linux Telephony will finally cave in (she's done such presentations for users' groups before, I'm told). And I understand that encryption issues will come up... always useful.

Didn't think I was gonna update, did ya?

SATURDAY SATURDAY SATURDAY!! Mr. John Lightsey will present an overview of Xen Paravirtualization in Linux. I don't know what that means, but since HE DOES, come hear him Saturday, 2pm, Hal-PC HQ.

AND in two weeks I just might be able to deliver somebody who can do a program on Linux Telephony. Stay tuned.

I didn't make Tech Fest, but a glimpse at their website (linked below) will indicate what subjects their agenda covered. Looks to be more for the programmer than the admin.

Oh, yes - THE SUN BOX. Carlile must read my blog, since he thought it would be funny not to show up last night to the Wednesday lab meeting. So a few of us looked through man pages for likely commands and just as time ran out, we bumped into some promising dhcp stuff. So looks like I'm close to an answer...

AAAAAAND I made gaming night last Sat. and will probably make this Sat's night as soon as I'm released from another commitment. I was flayed, boiled, mangled and impaled. But I got a script into all the attackers and it flipped their language packs to Portugese JUST KIDDING.

Hello There HEY FIX MY SUN BOX

Although registered, I missed Tech Fest and will follow up with testimony from Jim or somebody else that kept that commitment. I did, however, make the convocation of Holtzmann's Helldemons as they Urban Terror'd and card game'd their way into the night. Way, way into the night. Gaming night is BACK.

Program note: I have been informed by my employer that no, I can't have Wednesday to bring my Blade 100 up to HAL so Carlile can fix the network settings (don't think it fails to route due to hardware problems since the local Solaris 10 version of ifconfig says stuff like "up and running". Also, this Solaris load takes note of open network connections at about the 5th line of the boot sequence (in this case having sensed "100mbps"). In the immortal words of John Belushi, BUUUUUUUUUUUT NoooooOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo. I have to work and won't make it until NEXT Wednesday.

Rumblings are rumbling about us assisting the area's AIX club (more details as they develop) and we may be able to get John Lightsey to present what he's discovered about Xen Linux paravirtualization and Katherine Druckman is looking strong for an upcoming (probably February) meeting to tell us about the wonderful Linux Journal operation (great mag; pick it up at Micro Center and other fine purveyors of magazines). Wish I'd made it to Linux Journal's meeting thing at a local coffee house (I think they do that monthly).

Next meeting is on Feb. 14th, and I'll be there PROBABLY. Perhaps late (that's the date for the first day parade of the Galveston Mardi Gras) but we'll see. And the speaker should be announced here within days.

Current Scene

As mentioned earlier:

Jan. 24th meeting IS CANCELED for UH Tech Fest (registration is needed but free).

Also, a speaking event on Linux Journal is in the works. Katherine Druckman is checking to see whether Feb. 14th or 28th would work better for her.

AND remember, if you're a Hal-PC member and are interested in Linux gaming, Allan Holtzmann runs Gaming Night every Saturday from 5pm to midnight. Bring your gear, a load of Unreal Tournament 2004 or/and Urban Terror (latest) and perhaps a large polo mallet for wall hackers.

And a very special Jan. 12th to you

Mr. Lewallen's talk on SANs was just peachy, detailing how his outfit now relies on some firmware-commanded storage, so as to take a bit of load away from any of the OS's concerned (one of the things I particularly liked). He also revisited his virtualization arrangement, viewing status through a Windows client (which in this case is practically identical to the VMware Linux client).

New info: my excuse to cancel the Jan. 24th HLUG meeting (Tech Fest) requires a free registration here:

Houston Tech Fest

Its major sponsors are small-time outfits like Oracle, Microsoft and Sun. It's not a job fair but a seminar series on the various emerging technologies sold by the various participants. The location is the UH Central campus and it's on the 24th of this month (pre-empting the traditional fourth Sunday meeting of our group). Jim Ward and myself will definitely be there, and no doubt many others.

Even more clearer and far more clarificationer post

The presentation for Jan. 10th will be Mr. Lewallen on Storage Area Networks for sure. Of course, we will not shoot video of that presentation since his company uses methods that would not be wise to broadcast. SO SHOW UP.

However, on the 24th, I, by the power vested in me as the Puba Emeritus, hereby cancel the presentation. First of all, I think I need more time to con, er, convince the Linux Journal people that they need to do a presentation for us (Rick has connections on that, of which I'll avail myself) and second, there's a conflict with an event at the University of Houston...

Tech Fest is something on which I'll have more announcements as we approach the 24th, particularly since at least one of our members is working it and a few more of us plan on attending.

NEWS FLASH: Allan has said that I can publish this: the schedule for the Hal-PC Linux Gaming Night is now every Sat. from 5pm to midnight. That's what he said. Now I, the anti-gaming diehard, must close and start up Urban Terror and go get killed some more before my 5:30 appointment.

Clarificational Clarification

OK, gang, the next two Saturday meetings will be as follows:

Jan. 10, 2pm - Dave Llewallen on Storage Area Networks
Jan. 24, 2pm - Pete Jamison (and maybe a surprise guest) on Linux Journal

As always, the program will be preceded by our continuing feature, the "Favorite Flag", introducing new, evolving or unusual uses for common commands.

Yet Another New Year!

And another couple of HLUG programs for this month, namely on Jan. 10th and 24. I have two topics: Mr. Lewallen from that big ol' contractor operation down south has a few things to say about his recent Storage Area Network project (he's a SAN architect in all but name) and I'll be doing one about Linux Journal.

Oh - I forgot to mention which would be on the 10th and which on the 24th... I'll know tomorrow. I'll take whichever date Mr. Lewallen leaves, so as to make scheduling easier on him.

I'm posting on Tuesday, and the first Tue. of the month yet. That means that Sibley Cooley's "Linux 101" will be tonight at 7pm at the Hal-PC office.

And the Hal gaming SIG? Perhaps Saturday at 5pm - I'll check with Allan on that. I've been practicing getting killed... (games of choice are Urban Terror and Unreal Tournament 2004 since they've been ported to Linux for awhile) - and I will NOT mention my online game names since you may object to my obnoxious tactics.