Archive for the ‘Linux’ Category
Ubuntu 9.10 – Samba Shares
A while back, rather than add in a new Samba share through the /etc/samba/smb.conf file, I used the GUI tool to add the share. When I went looking to edit some shares tonight, I started digging through the config files… to my initial surprise I was unable to find the share locations in the config file.
A little more searching, and I found the files located in /var/lib/samba/usershares/. I guess the GUI adds a text file for each share into this directory. In a way, I like this slightly better for organization. Yet it confused me at first expecting to find the results in the main config file.
After searching, apparently the smb.conf is old school for share locations. This was introduced into Samba v3.0.23, which itself is from 2007 or so. Guess I need to get out more. Now I want to look if this is the “default” for Ubuntu Server.
Testing your WPA PSK
To test your PSK on a WPA protected WiFi network, using Ubuntu 9.04. The wireless interface used was Linksys USB54GC.
The Ubuntu was a fresh install, wireless interface was recognized and installed with no additional work.
1. Install Aircrack 2. Download dictionary list. Optionally you can make your own, or add your known PSK to the list. 3. Set wireless interface to run in monitor mode (wlan0 name of interface. replace if yours is different) 4. Once your start airmon-ng, you should see what the name of the monitor interface is. in my case, mon0. Now start airodump. You will need to gather some info now. Namely, the ESSID (SSID), BSSID (MAC Address of AP), MAC address of client, channel AP is using. 5. Now lets collect some packets. -c XX is the channel of the AP. Fill in the correct value. -w is the file that we will be saving this too. It will save as psk-01.cap or higher if already exists. Obviously file in BSSID, which is the MAC of the AP. mon0 is your interface from earlier. 6. Open another terminal window, and deauth a client on the network if there is one. -a is AP, -c is client MAC. -0 is deauth command, where X is deauth number count. I used 3-4. 7. In original terminal, stop airodump, and run aircrack. -w is wordfile, can also end in lst, etc. -b is AP MAC we have been using. And psk-01.cap is the capture file. What this should show you is how the strength of the PSK can effect bruteforce cracking of your WPA network. If your PSK is weak, your network is weak. WPA is improved from WEP but still weak when used with easy to guess pass keys. It should go without saying that this should only be done on your own network to test your PSK strength and its vulnerability to bruteforce dictionary cracking.
sudo apt-get install aircrack-ng
List 1 (245 MB uncompressed) List 2 (2 GB uncompressed)
sudo airmon-ng start wlan0
sudo airodump-ng mon0
sudo airodump-ng -c XX -w psk --bssid XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX mon0
sudo aireplay-ng -0 X -a XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX -c XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX mon0
sudo aircrack-ng -w XX.txt -b XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX psk-01.cap
Ubuntu and MP3 Playback
Just a little rant here… It seems pretty foolish that Ubuntu does not come with MP3 playback support out of the box on a fresh install. Regardless of politics or philosophies of open source and free/free software, this seems pretty lame.
How many users have MP3s? How many potential converters to Linux will be turned off when they can’t just play their music? How many will actually want to go and search on how to install the restricted packages, just to get some music? Yes, its simple to do. Yes, you can use other formats. But seriously? Besides, not everyone wants to spend time to get something so basic to work, or perhaps does no even have the knowledge to do so regardless of how simple.
My feelings are based on the annoyance of having to do this on my new Ubuntu install, and every time I need to do this it just brings the annoyance to the surface again and again. Enough already…
Fedora 10 and VirtualBox Linux Guest Additions
I ran into an issue installing the guest additions for my VirtualBox instance of Fedora 10 recently. After installing the required compnents:
yum install gcc kernel-headers make
I would still get an error explaining to me that I did not have the Kernel Headers installed. What the issue came down to, for whatever reason, is that the kernel headers installed did not match the kernel version that the guest installation said it needed. Not only was the version off, but guest installation wanted i386 and installed was i686. Solution for me was:
yum remove kernel-headers
yum install kernel-headers glibc-headers
After that the install worked.
Ubuntu Server Upgrade
I upgraded my Webserver/Mail server from Ubuntu 7.04 to 8.04 LTS today. Everything went pretty smoothly… love the simple upgrade method. I will be posting a method to get SMTP Auth working with this version, after I figure out which packages and method I want to use to get this going.
Easy Linux Wireless Wanted
I have used Linux off and on for years. Yet due to my “forced” use of Windows to either run work related apps or programs that I felt for various reasons I could not be without, I am still very n00bish when it comes to the OS. I know my way around fine, and I am actually not afraid of command line. I use Linux as my webserver, and it doesnt have X or any other graphical interface installed.
Yet when it comes down to it, I admit I have a softspot for GUIs. Perhaps this is because I feel that more information can be converyed in a simple and effecient manner, or that they are quicker (although most of the time they are not). So when I have the choice to use a GUI, I use it more than the terminal. Now that I think about it, I should also probably blame my Windows roots. Habits die hard.
So as my last post conveyed, I installed Linux again. Frankly I am tired of Vista. Let me preface that first… I actually do not think that poorly of Vista. There is a lot of bad press about the OS, and a lot of very passionate people of each side voicing opinions. I used the OS for 8 months or so. When I first got it on my new laptop, I installed XP again due to my feeling that it was sooo slow. After a week I wanted to give it a more honest try, and did a clean install. Was much better that time around. Every OS has its issues, and Vista is not alone in that. But… to the people who are Mac fanboys or Linux fanboys, pretending that your champion OS does not have issues either is being fanatical or ignorant.
So, why did I get tired of it? One reason more than any other (such as printer drivers being a pain, like the HP ColorLaser 1300 that would work on one VIsta comp but not another… or without lots of tears. or programs having issues, or security annoyances), was the slooooow copy speeds. I wasted so much time copying files within the computer itself, to network drives, even USB attached drives. I started thinking the other day, when it is so bad that I actually plan on not using my VIsta computer to send a large file and instead think of ways to use an XP computer… its gone to far.
I came up with a list of the applications I currently use, which have changed to more opensource apps as time has gone on. I always have liked opensource, but recently I have switched not because they were free, or the freedom they have. But because I thought they were actually better applications than the commercial alternatives I had. Since I figured I could use 95% of my software natively on Linux, and the rest I could probably get to run with Wine… I decided to give Linux on my Laptop another try.
I have tried Linux on my laptop more than once. Fedora, SuSe, and Ubuntu. Fedora and Ubuntu never liked Wireless, and SuSe annoyed me. I like KDE but I just felt like I was never getting stuff done and spending more time goofing with the OS. As much of a geek as I am, I like to hack what I want. I would rather spend my time coding some web app than wasting hours trying to get a driver to run or the OS to do what I want. I am not a driver developer nor want to be. Some things should just work. And that sums up the reason why time after time I got rid of Linux. I use it on a desktop and never switched. Yet for a laptop where one of the main goals is wireless, I just found it unacceptable.
That brings me to my current state. Fresh install of Ubuntu 8.04 (Beta, but final version in less than a week). And again, more wireless issues. What I find frustrating is that google searches and forums queries, all give a multitude of ways to accomplish a single task. There are 3 GUIs to control Wireless settings. There are 2 or more different drivers that I “can” use for a single card. And no one seems to agree on the best method. The Ubuntu docs themselves list more than one approach. Can we not just agree on one method? Can we not just get ONE GUI that can just work? And not be buggy, or unfinished???
Linux is an OS built on good networking. So why is it so horrible at doing what the other major OSes can just do? And easily non the less. Wireless has been around for years! Come on already, if the masses are to uptake Linux (a dream at this point?) things like this cannot be.
I did find a seemingly good doc in the Ubuntu Forums that lists the steps to get Wireless working on my exact Laptop. Yet it is not updated for 8.04 yet… ugh. So I guess no wireless for me till then. Cause after spending two hours yet again trying to get wireless to work, im done for now. Or, maybe tomorrow I will find another method. Cause even though it looks good, it is still accomplishing a task that should be semi-instant through a maze of steps and command line hoopla.
Ubuntu Install Error
Trying to install Ubuntu? Or any other Linux Distro?
If you get something such as:
buffer I/O error on device sr0 (And some block numbers)…
Try re-burning the ISO onto a new disc. If you have another computer, try that first. If not, slow down the burn speed to something like 4x 8x or 12x. The error is a corruption error and can come from a bad CD Drive, possibly your HD, or the CD media itself. Luckily in my case, it was just the CD. Although I did use another computer to burn a new image.
Got to find out what the issue was with the other comp now…
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