Ubuntu and Debian Security Applications Review

By Bob Parkinsons

Securing servers from potential attacks is of utmost importance in today’s economic climate. This article is a personal review of some of the best applications I have reviewed recently to secure my own server as well as others. This document contains applications which may or may not fit every situation to properly secure Internet facing systems. But it does use entirely open source and free host based software, So they will run without the need for expensive external hardware.

When reviewing existing security policies a few factors need to be accounted for first. These being performance, stability and overall use of system resources. Use this to determine the necessity for each of your own requirements. Instead of just pushing all of the suggested on to a single server. As some applications reviewed are not always entirely interchangeable with the others mentioned.

That being said we’ll start with Apache the Worlds most popular Web Server.

Mod Security

Without doubt one of my personal favorite Apache modules is Mod Security. Although it does require registration to download and is not entirely free without restriction. Mod Security is an invaluable Web Application firewall that deters lots of the scum and random bots floating around the Internet today. According to the Mod Security website over 70% of all attacks carried out on the web today are done on the web application level. Which is highly relevant since a single compromised web site can often leak thousands if not hundreds of thousands of passwords and user credentials in just a single compromise.

Pros

Mod Security has a very strict rule-set that is capable of blocking many types of web application attacks most of which can be found in the guidelines set out by the OWASP top 10.

Cons

The default rules can break functionality of Web applications at first. But it can be fixed if you can find the offending rules by viewing log files and commenting those rules out. Common things that may happen is that users are unable to login or some other functionality such as a custom search may break.

Snort

The next very interesting application is Snort the commonly known defacto standard in intrusion detection. Snorts job is to monitor networks while being as light weight as humanly possible. As to not consume to many system resources and slow down the users of the systems it may be running on. What really makes snort unique however is that it has heritage of being a very stable and robust IDS with both open source rule-sets and more advanced commercial rule-sets which are available via subscription.

Pros

Lightweight and flexible, Trusted and stable.

Cons

The free rules available have a lot to be desired when compared to the subscription rules.

AIDE

AIDE the file integrity checker can be used to create hashes of files or directories and is a generic replacement for the older Linux application trip wire. If an application has been modified without consent a simple cross reference via an image disk can reveal insights quickly as to which files may have changed in the process. By providing SHA1 hashes or other algorithms. It is therefore very useful for analyzing the exact cause of a vulnerability in the event of a possible intrusion and in many respects can be considered a root-kit detector without all the fancy bells and whistle like our next application.

Pros

Supports custom algorithms and makes up for where trip wire and others once failed.

Cons

Lack of documentation to properly implement and utilize for less experienced users it can be a concept you may give up on quickly. (I don’t blame you but it’s worth it.)

RKHUNTER

Another good Root-kit detector is RKHUNTER and works very much the same as AIDE but is more specifically a root-kit detector in that it scans all the usual locations where it would make sense for root-kits to hide on a Linux system or where they have historically been stored.

Pros

Very in depth and has support for a wide range of common root-kits.

Cons

By default on debian and ubuntu it flags a false positive for gawk, awk and a few other directories but I believe this to only be a false positive.

FAIL2BAN

Fail2Ban helps block out automated and often brute-force queries by bots or potential attackers over SSH that make too many incorrect log-in attempts.

Pros

By automatically banning bots not only do you protect your system from compromise but also help keep performance of the server at more optimal levels.

Cons

I’ve locked myself out temporarily before by not setting the threshold high enough and forgetting what password I used. As long as you don’t do that you should be fine.

Choose the right Web host

While this is not an application I believe that just as important and a major factor in keeping your web server secure is to choose the right web host and environment for your needs. While their are many cows, daddy’s, gators and other sharks trying to add 1 & 1 together in the 5$ or less discount hosting war. Take some time to reconsider what you are paying for and if you can afford it pay that little bit extra to get the benefits of a well known Secure Hosting provider when ever you can.

Installing Programs in Linux – It’s No Longer Difficult

By S Austin

There are quite a few myths that are still common today about the Linux operating system. One of these myths is that programs are very difficult to install.

There was a time in Linux when you had to do something called compiling a program. This involved going to the terminal and manually installing all of the files. If you did this incorrectly, the program would not load. If you needed another program installed to make this one work, you would have no idea what to do. You had to do intensive research to make sure you had all the dependencies installed. It really a serious pain and much too difficult for even an expert computer user.

This misery is still remembered by many who will tell others that installing programs in Linux is simply too hard to do. Today, after about a decade of improvements (which in computer years is quite a bit) installing programs in Linux is easy. In fact, it might be easier than what most people are used to with their current systems.

Most versions of Linux have some sort of package manager. This means that a group of people have checked certain programs to make sure they work, maintain all the updates for you, and make sure all the dependencies will install when you want to put an application on your computer.

In Ubuntu, you open the Applications menu and click on Add/Remove. Search for the program you want to install. Check a box. Then hit Apply Changes. That’s it. As you can see, this is a very simple process. To remove the program you just uncheck the box and hit Apply Changes and it’s gone. That’s easy enough for almost anyone to do. Additionally, you know these packages and programs are safe for your computer since a human being has manually approved them for your computer.

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How to Use Your Palm Pilot With Ubuntu

By Linda McDermott

Palm Pilots can work with Ubuntu. Learn which program you will need and how to use this to install software to your device.

If you are using Ubuntu, there are times where you can’t use older hardware since it was never ever made for Linux. One older popular piece of hardware is the Palm Pilot. While you might not expect something like this to work, it will with your Ubuntu installation.

There is a program that comes with the distribution called Gpilot. If you don’t have this, it can be installed from the repositories depending on if you have a Debian based distribution. Otherwise you will have to manually install the software to get it to work.

Gpilot is an open source program that was written so that devices like the Palm Pilot and Ubuntu could interact.

Under System and Preferences you can find a program called PalmOS Devices. This is what you need to do in order to set up your Palm Pilot to be recognized with your system. You will need to select the port that your hardware is plugged into. Once you have successfully done this, you can use Gpilot in order to install software to your machine.

Unfortunately there is not a graphical user interface for this program so you have to use the terminal. Open the terminal and type in “gpilot-install-file” followed by the file that you want to install and press enter. You will then have to hot sync your data with your Palm Pilot which will install the software to your device.

A second way of installing software if you do not like doing it this way, is to get an old Palm SD card assuming your computer can read this type of data. You can drag and drop the files you need to install from your computer onto the SD card. For most things, you Palm Pilot will recognize this data. It can be read off the card or copied over the hard drive on the device which generally helps the application run a bit faster.

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Using Gnome Do – Quickly and Easy Launch Applications

By D. P. Robinson

Gnome Do is an add on that you can use with the Gnome graphical user interface. In design it’s very similar to Mac OSX’s quicksilver. It will allow you to quickly launch applications, run terminal commands and do searches both within your desktop as well as on the internet.

One of the fascinating things about technology, and especially technology that relates to computers and software, is that you are continuously expanding the number of tools you have, as well as increasing the amount of information your are producing. This is the age of information, but that is just a short step away from information overload and this is why tools that help you find, administer and easily use both the information you need and the applications to run it, are essential. The down side of all this technology advance is that keeping tabs on all you do, all you produce and all that you need, becomes more and more difficult. This where tools like Gnome Do come to the rescue as they have been developed with the idea of making life easier – and we can all do with a bit of that.

Gnome Do comes with an extensive set of plugins to help you perform many tasks and manage applications including use as search tool, music player, file browser, dictionary, file organizers and many more.

To get Gnome Do check with your distributions repositories. If using Gnome on your distribution, it’s highly likely that the Gnome Do package will be there. It is in the Ubuntu and Debian repositories if you can’t find them elsewhere.

Once installed, you are ready to go. The default to bring up the Gnome Do interface once it’s open is to use the “Windows Key” + Space. There is an option to make this whatever you want since some older computers do not have the “Windows” or Super key.

Once you hit the keyboard shortcut, just start typing. If you hit G, applications that have a G in their title will start showing up. You can also type in the type of application you want. If you type in Browser, your web browser regardless of it’s name will show up. Eventually you will get so fast with keyboard shortcuts, you will be launching applications this way as opposed to point and click.

It also has a few other features. You have the option of typing in a phrase and searching from different popular websites. You can type up some thoughts then copy it to be pasted elsewhere. You can even put in mathematical expressions and use Gnome Do as a quick and easy calculator.

D.P. Robinson enjoys writing about the outdoors, camping and outdoor cooking stove, amongst other things. His latest site provides information and resources on Outdoor Stoves.

Fixing “Mounting Unchecked Fs” Linux Boot Error

By Allen Sood

Like every other operating system, Linux computer also contains a system or boot volume, which is used to boot your system. Boot device is one on which all the boot files and Linux operating system are installed. In some cases, you may encounter boot errors while trying to start Linux-based computer. This behavior may occur due to missing or damaged boot files. In such cases, Linux system refuses to boot and you can not access the data stored on your Linux hard drive. It leads to critical data loss and needs Linux Data Recovery.

When you try to boot your Linux computer, you may receive the following warning message:

“EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended”

After the above error, when you run ‘e2fsck’ utility, you face further error messages that resemble the followings:

• TivoMaster:/var/tmp$ e2fsck -y /dev/hda7 e2fsck 1.06, 7-Oct-96 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09 e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hda7

• The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:

e2fsck -b 8193

This behavior of Linux operating system renders all your data inaccessible. In order to access your valuable data, you need to identify the cause of this problem and perform Data Recovery Linux by resolving the problem.

Root of the problem

This problem may occur after improper system shutdown without unmounting the root file system. After this, the root file system may get damaged and you will face the above stated problem.

Resolution

You can sort out this problem by formatting the hard drive and reinstalling Linux operating system. After formatting, you need to restore data from the current backup as it removes all the data from hard drive. However, if the backup is not available, Linux Recovery becomes essential.

Recovery is possible using advanced tools, known as Linux Data Recovery software. These software are designed to scan damaged hard drive using powerful algorithms and extract data that can not be accessed normally. They perform absolute recovery in a safe and easy way.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is the most effective tool that insures perfect recovery in all cases of data loss. The software is developed to recover data from Ext4, Ext2, Ext2, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12 file system volumes. It works well with all major distributions of Linux operating system, include Debian, Mandriva, SUSE, Red Hat, Fedora, and Ubuntu.

Allen a student of Mass Communication doing research on Linux recovery, Linux Data Recovery software And Ext3 Recovery.

It’s that time of the year again, the spring release of the latest Ubuntu distro, 10.4, Lucid Lynx! It’s always very exciting to be one of the first users of the latest Ubuntu offering, and this time proves to be no exception. The latest features are fresh and exciting and we will outline some of the highlights below.

• Greater support for nVidia graphics drivers
• more seamless integration of social networking services like Twitter and Facebook
• removal of HAL from boot process to speed startup
• The latest GNOME environment for the default version of Ubuntu
• Kubuntu features KDE SC 4.4
• New themes and wallpapers are also added
• Ubuntu One file synching
• Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud is updated
• Ubuntu One Music Store will be unveiled
• Linux kernel 2.6.32
• Mozilla Firefox browser default search engine changed to Yahoo!

It certainly looks like this update to the most popular Linux distro is more than just minor changes, and more profound improvements to this great package are arriving.

Get your copy of Ubuntu today!

Ext3 File System Journaling in Linux

By Allen Sood

Ext3 or Third Extended is a reliable and popular file system for Linux OS. It supports advanced concept of file system journaling to protect your system against unexpected shutdown, crash, and power outages like situations. It reduces the need of system repairs, and possibilities of data loss. Thus you do not need to use Linux recovery methods to overcome any sort of problem.

Levels of Journaling in the Ext3:

• Journal- Both file contents and metadata are written to journal before they are being committed to file system. It improves system performance as it is comparatively uninterrupted on the hard drive.

• Ordered- Only the metadata is journaled; the file contents aren’t journaled. However, it guarantees that the file information is written to hard drive before the associated metadata is labeled as committed in journal.

• Writeback- Only the metadata is journaled and contents may be written on the disk after or before the file system journal is updated. In this case the files, altered just before a system crash, may get damaged.

Although, journaling is a useful feature of Ext3, but it also has some disadvantages, such as:

• Functionality- Since the Ext3 directs to be backward compatible with Ext2, several on-disk data structures are similar to those of the Ext2. Thus, Ext3 lacks numerous features of latest designs, like dynamic inode allocation, extents, and block sub-allocation.

• Defragmentation- Ext3 does not include any online defragmentation tool, which can work on file system level. High fragmentation on Ext3 volume may affect the system performance.

• Recovery- Ext3 does not support recovery of deleted files in file system design. The Ext3 driver actively removes files by wiping the file inodes for system crash safety reasons.

• No Checksumming in the Journal- Ext3 doesn’t do checksumming while writing data to journal. If the ‘barrier=1? isn’t enabled as mount option, and hardware failure occurs, you run the risk of serious file system damage during crash.

File system corruption eventually leads to a data loss situation and you need Linux data recovery to get out of it. Linux data Recovery is best possible using third-party recovery applications.

The Ext3 Recovery software employs high-end scanning algorithms to extract all lost, missing, and inaccessible data from your Linux hard drive. The software enables safe, quick, easy, and perfect recovery in all cases of data loss.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery software successfully recovers lost files, directories, and hard drive volumes. The software supports recovery from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12 volumes. It works well with all popular Linux distributions, such as Mandriva, SUSE, Red Hat, Fedora, Debian, and Ubuntu.

Allen a student of Mass Communication doing research on Ext2 Recovery, Linux Data Recovery software And Ext3 Recovery. HE is also a freelancer for ext3-file-recovery.data-recovery-linux.com/

Your Mozilla Firefox is Slow? How to Effectively Boost the Browsing Speed

By Jacob A. Turner

Your Mozilla Firefox is slow because of a number of reasons we would trash out in this discuss. Mozilla is one of the best browsers on the entire internet world at the moment. It’s uniqueness sterns from the fact that it supports several other operating systems such as Linux, Mac, Windows and many others. You may need to boost the speed of your Mozilla browser sometimes. Follow the Firefox tweaks below to enhance the speed of the browser.

Start by typing: ‘about:config ‘ on the address bar of the Mozilla Firefox. You would be taken to a page where you are asked if you want to proceed or not. Just click ‘ENTER’ so that you would be taken to a list of configurations and many more. This configuration is almost universal in nature and is the exact configuration used by most irrespective of the computer’s speed or the connection type. The configurations are as follows:

On the filter tab; enter ‘network.http.pipelining’, then double click on the network.http.pipelining field, and then set the value you see there to ‘TRUE’. You should set the next value to ’8′ by double clicking the next field that says: network.http.pipelining.maxrequests.

Then get back to the filter tab and type ‘network.http.proxy.pipeliningand hit ‘ENTER’. Set it at ‘True’ by double clicking ‘network.http.proxy.pipelining’ field.

Now, right-click on any corner or anywhere on the about:config result and simply choose new and then integer. Follow it up by typing ‘content.notify.backoffcount’, then click ‘OK’ and set the value to ’5′.

Then type ‘network.dns.disableIPv6′ on the filter tab you see there. Don’t forget to set this to the value ‘TRUE’ too.

Lastly, set the ‘ui.submenuDelay’ to the value ’0′. To find this, simply right-click on anywhere on the about:config result and follow it up by choosing new integer.

The Mozilla is slow but not after completely this detailed reconfiguration. You would definitely experience faster and better browser.

There are lots of configurations on any browser because of the nature of their primary task, that is helping to gather data from all over the internet but the ones we have discussed above are those that simply would help to hasten the speed of your browser. You don’t need to worry about what may have happened to you computer is the speed suddenly disappears. It may be as a result of certain configurations that needs readjustments or some certain actions you have earlier taken that require redress.

If your Mozilla Firefox is slow after reconfiguring certain configs, it is the time to look in the direction of the registry. It is true that the registry performs a lot of useful tasks. It sometimes gathers more information than it can process and gets ‘confused’ in the process. This usually results in wrong saving of certain data. This kind of confusion usually results to slow speed of the entire computer because it would be difficult for it to interpreter the actions you are requesting. By trying to properly ‘read’ what you are asking it to do, the result takes time and this is what causes most of the slowed system speed.

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How to Ensure Data Security by Using an Effective Firewall

By V K Rajagopalan

Data security is extremely important for every person that uses a computer system. One of the best ways that you can ensure data security is by using a firewall. A firewall is a program that is built in to most computer systems. It can also be a hardware device that helps to block intrusions from worms, hackers, and even viruses.

The intrusions that the firewall blocks are those that try to reach the system through the internet. While you can ensure data security by way of a firewall, it is essential to understand that it needs to be supplemented with a decent program that focuses on eliminating viruses and spyware. This will ensure maximum protection.

If you are on a network, whether it is in the home or at a business, it is absolutely essential that you ensure that you activate a firewall on each and every single system in that network. Many feel if they have a router, which is a firewall that is hardware based, that is enough. However, it is not. Every computer should have an active firewall on the system.

You may find that choosing a firewall for your system is a challenge. There are three basic types of firewalls that can be selected. First, you have the standard firewall that is a software program. Next, you have the firewall that is an actual piece of hardware. Then, you have a firewall that is automatically built in to the wireless routers that you find on many types of networks.

In order to determine which type of firewall is most appropriate for your particular situation, there are a few things that you must consider. These considerations are as follows:

1. How many computers will this particular firewall be responsible for handling?

2. What types of operating systems do these computers implement? An operating system is represented by Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Macintosh.

If you have a Microsoft Windows operating system that has XP with the Service Pack 2 or the Vista version, you may benefit from using the firewall that is built in to Windows. This firewall is built in to the system and it automatically turned on to ensure data security.

Many individuals who have Windows XP have elected to not download Service Pack 2. If you are one of these individuals, you may be wondering if it is possible to benefit from a firewall that is built into Windows. The answer is “yes”. You can enjoy protection through the Internet Connection Firewall, but it is important that you turn this function on in order to benefit from the protection that it offers.

There are many different types of firewalls that you can purchase as standalone software for your computer system if you elect to. These types of firewalls are extremely beneficial for individuals who have the operating system of Windows 98, ME, 200, and even Linux, and Macintosh. The only real downfall to these types of programs is that they can prove to be costly and it may prove to be challenging when it comes to the initial installation and configuration.

The latest version of Windows is Windows 7 which was released sometime in October 2009. This version has proved to be the best among all earlier Windows operating systems in terms of functionality, built-in security features and ease of use. I would strongly suggest that you upgrade your computer’s operating systems to Windows 7 at your earliest.

If you have a network in your home, or at your business, it may be best to have the firewall of a hardware router. These pieces of hardware can connect many different computers at once. This security is supplemental to any firewall that is already installed on the computer systems. It does require a little wiring when it comes to setup. This is a minor complication compared to the dangers that hackers, worms, and viruses can pose to your system.

If you have a wireless network in your home, it is important to ensure that you have a wireless router. Not only does this router assist in establishing an internet connection, it is also beneficial in acting as a firewall. The downfall to these types of firewalls is that it broadcasts a signal via radio waves that can be accessed by someone outside of the network if they know how to do so.

If you use a wireless router, it is important that it is equipped with a proper password. It may take some money to purchase the additional equipment, but it is well worth the safety and security that is offered to your network. This is essential to ensuring the protection of your data. If you want to ensure the data security on your computers, a good firewall, or a multiple firewall is an absolute must.

And, to help you learn to use computers and the internet safely and effectively, I invite you to take a look at my computer training website. You would get lot of useful tips when you visit http://www.ctfy.net. From Rajagopalan, A computer professional helping people in the usage of computers with safety and security.

Running Commands at Startup in Debian and Ubuntu – The Simplest Approach

By Austin White

Running custom scripts on startup is a common operation in the Linux community. In my case, when the machine hosting my website needs to be rebooted or even crashes, it is critical that the backend processes that the website depends on start correctly. For other Linux or BSD users, it can be useful to start up useful background processes, perhaps servers for accessing your machine remotely.

The Classic Method for Running Processes at Startup

The most documented way of starting processes when the machine boots is to add a control script to /etc/init.d. This script must take an argument that can be one of “stop,” “start,” and “restart.” An example of such a script would be /etc/init.d/ssh, which is used to start and stop the ssh server. When a machine shuts down, it is important for many daemons to clean up their pid files and otherwise shut down nicely. However, for user-run processes, simply being sent SIGTERM as part of normal shutdown is sufficient.

Here is an example of a script that is used only for starting a process.

$ cat /etc/init.d/boot_server

#!/bin/sh -e

case "$1" in

start)

/home/prod/start_server.sh

;;

stop)

;;

reload|restart|force-reload)

/home/prod/start_server.sh

;;

*)

echo "Usage: [this] {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2

exit 1

;;

esac

exit 0

To ensure that daemons are started and stopped, particularly in the correct order, the machine runs special symlinks to these scripts. The symlinks have special names that either begin with an S or a K. For example, my machine has /etc/rc3.d/S20lighttpd and /etc/rc0.d/K20lighttpd. (The numbers in the rc directory names are known as runlevels. A discussion of runlevels is beyond the scope of this article, and if you wish to know more, there are a number of good resources on the internet.) Scripts beginning with S are used to start a process during bootup. Those beginning with K are used to kill a process during shutdown. The number in the link name is used to determine the order in which these processes are started and killed.

Thus, to run a process at startup on your Linux machine, you would need to both add a script to /etc/init.d that takes “start” as an argument, and you would want to add symlinks to your script to the /etc/rc*.d directories. Your scripts have to follow the naming convention described above, probably starting with S99 or S98 to ensure that your processes start after all the important system daemons. The K symlink is unnecessary.

Using /etc/rc.local – A Better Way to Start Processes on Debian and Ubuntu

Instead of adding a startup script and the related symlinks, a much easier approach is to add your commands to the bash script /etc/rc.local. A quick look at /etc/rc.local demonstrates that it is rather self-explanatory.

$ cat /etc/rc.local

#!/bin/sh -e

#

# rc.local

#

# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.

# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other

# value on error.

#

# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution

# bits.

#

# By default this script does nothing.

exit 0

At the end of /etc/rc.local, but before the exit 0 line, I can simply add a call to my server startup script:

# Run website processes

/home/prod/start_server.sh

It is a one-line change, instead of adding an overly complicated script and the related symlinks. Of course, this is not an option if you require additional commands to be run at shutdown. In addition, if you need your process to be started before some other system process, you must resort to the classic startup script as discussed above. /etc/rc.local almost the last script to be run as part of the boot process.

Conclusion: Use /etc/rc.local to Run Processes at Startup in Linux

Classic startup scripts in /etc/init.d and /etc/rc*.d are appropriate for many daemons and some more complicated user processes that must either start before a system process or be cleaned up during shutdown. However, /etc/rc.local is preferred for all other cases. It is a simple bash script you can edit as root on your machine.

Austin is a software engineer working on askR.com, a social recommendations site.

View his personal website.

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