Javeed Abdul

Oracle VM Documentation

Javeed Abdul — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:03:44 +0000

Check out the Oracle VM Documentation. Took me an hour to collect all the information.I will be updating intermittently

Install & Configure Oracle VM Manager 2.2

Javeed Abdul — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 03:02:18 +0000

Goto Virtual Machine Settings and change the change the CD/DVD ISO image to point to the iso image of VM Manager you downloaded from Oracle Website.

Execute the following as root
# mkdir /media/cdrom
# mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
#cd /media/cdrom
#sh runInstaller.sh
This will start the Oracle VM Manager Installation

Select the option 1 on the next screen

Select 1 on the next screen

Specify the passwords for SYS and SYSTEM

Select ‘y’ on the next screen

Set the ‘OVS’,'oc4jadmin’,'keystore’,'admin’ Passwords

8

9

10

As Oracle VM server does not include XWindows thus there is no Graphical User Interface.

So, from the browser of Host PC of VMware Workstation enter the following address

https://192.168.1.111:4443/OVS

And, you would see Oracle VM Manager home screen

All the Best

Install & Configure Oracle VM on WMware

Javeed Abdul — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 02:40:22 +0000

Oracle VM Server from Oracle, Competing with other Visualization products, such as VMware

I planned to Install Oracle VM Server and Oracle VM Manager as a VMware guest, but when I researched on various forums and blogs including OTN, I came to know that “Oracle VM Server is a bare-metal product and that it cannot be installed as a VMware guest!”.
Failure to procure a spare machine and having some time to kill made me try and succeed in installing Oracle VM Server and Oracle VM Manager as a VMware Guest.
The following are the steps:-

Download Oracle Server and Oracle VM Manager from http://edelivery.oracle.com/oraclevm
Open VMware and select New Virtual Machine option. Select the option Typical for type of configuration.

Click next to go to the next screenSelect “Installer disk image file” option here and browse and select the iso file of Oracle VM Server you downloaded from the above link.

Select Linux as OS

Select the Location where you want to store the Virtual Disk

Specify the maximum size of the disk

Click Finish

Oracle VM Server loads Press Enter to start the installation of Oracle VM Server

Press Skip

Select the Type of Keyboard

Press Yes to Create new partitions

Select the option Remove all partitions and press ok

Click Yes to confirm

Click Yes to Review and Modify Partition Layout

Click on the /OVS mount point and select Delete Goto the / partition select EDIT

Select the option Fill all the available space and press OK(If you go with the defaults then during the installation of Database XE the pre-requisites might fail, as it requires a minimum space of 2600 MB in the installation drive.)

Press OK on the partitioning page

Press OK on Boot Loader Configuration Screen

Select OK on Oracle VM Management Interface

Select Manual address configuration on the IPv4 Configuration Screen and specify the IP and Netmask

Set the Gateway and Primary DNS

Manually Set the Hostname

Set the Time Zone

Set the Oracle VM Agent Password

Set the Root Password

click OK to begin the installation

Select Reboot after the installation is completed

When the VM is restarting press enter to enter the GNU-GRUB to select the 32-bit option else you will encounter an error “ERR: Not a 64-Bit CPU!erver-ovs (xen-64-3 .1.3 2.6.18-8.1.15.0.16.el5ovs)’” as by default the Oracle VM Server boots as a xen-64-3 .1.3 2.6.18-8.1.15.0.16.el5ovs!

When you press Enter during reboot you will see the below screen, select the first option and press enter

You will be prompted for EUL Agreement, select Agree

Now you ready to use .. check out my next post about Oracle VM Manager,

Linux Cheat sheets

Javeed Abdul — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:42:59 +0000

Below list of Linux cheat sheets can be used by everybody who administer Linux operating system including beginners/newbies and bearded gurus.

PDF | Command Line Interface (CLI), Security, Networking

Unix/Linux Command Reference by fosswire.com
THE ONE PAGE LINUX MANUAL (A summary of useful Linux commands)
LINUX System Call Quick Reference
LINUX Admin Quick Reference
Linux quick reference card
Linux Shell quick reference guide
Linux Security Quick Reference Guide
tcpdump cheat sheet
Wireshark display filters
Netcat cheat sheet

HTML | CLI, Gnome/KDE

HTML | Linux Distributions Cheat Sheets

HTML/PDF | vi, sed, awk

Let me know if you have of your favourites.. I will add them on.. cheers.

IT Concepts That Non-IT People Don’t Get

Javeed Abdul — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:34:01 +0000

Since I “work with computers” I tend to get asked to do fair amount of unofficial technical support for family and neighbours. I’ve noticed that the same confusions about IT crop up again and again. Here’s my top ten.

(Note that due to my background this is going to be Windows-centric. Please don’t take this to mean that I think Windows PCs are unfriendly – it’s just I don’t know enough about other systems to be able to comment. I also don’t want to come across as elitist – if non-IT people don’t understand something, that’s not because they’re dumb – it’s because we haven’t made computer systems obvious enough.)

1. When to Click and When to Double-Click

This one is a continual source of annoyance to IT people, and especially to those in support. It seems obvious to us which should be used when, but before you get mad with the user you’re helping, consider this: can you make rules for when to click and when to double-click? Why do you double-click an icon to perform the action, but only single-click a button? What if Windows is set to “single click to open an item”?

Add into the mix the close cousin right-clicking, together with triple-clicks in text editors, double-single-clicks to rename, and of course modified clicks (holding down control or shift), and I think confusion is the correct response.

2. Hierarchical Folders

Hierarchical folders are a great idea – don’t get me wrong – but they’re a good example of a neat metaphor overextended and hence confused. Most people are familiar with cardboard folders that can store bits of paper – and equally most people are happy to store their files in folders on their PC. Where it all goes wrong is with folders within folders, as this very rarely happens in the real world. Many users are simply unaware that they can create additional folders inside “My Documents” – hence the usual tendency to find hundreds or even thousands of files, all at the same folder level.

Making the problem even worse is the fact that “Save As” and “Open” dialogs often look nothing like the standard file explorer. This makes it more difficult to mentally link the save operation with the save location. This leads to the common problem of a user “losing” all their files – when in fact the “open” dialog has for some reason defaulted to another directory, and hence shows a different list of files to those the user was expecting.

(And don’t even get me started on the fact that folders like “My Documents” appear in TWO locations in the folder tree – the physical one that users can’t find or recognise, and the virtual one which isn’t supported by all applications).

3. Using Add/Remove Programs

I need to clarify here. When a user wants to remove a program they chose to install, they head over to Add/Remove Programs – no problems. I’ve found however that when it’s software they didn’t install (or didn’t intentionally install) – there’s a problem. Messages that pop-up on start-up, unwanted system tray announcements, even auto-starting applications – these are all a source of annoyance, and often there’s no obvious way to associate the offender with the appropriate entry in Add/Remove Programs. Often trialware pops up nag screens at startup, giving the user the option to purchase it – but without an option to uninstall.

Even worse is the case where a user wants to keep the application, just not have it launch at startup. There are many different ways an application can hook into the startup sequence, and most of them are inaccessible unless you’re comfortable using something like msconfig (which, let’s face it, non-IT people aren’t).

4. Installing Bundled Software Hurts

IT people know that bundled software (aka “crapware”) isn’t included for our benefit – it’s generally a way hardware manufactures or system builders lower costs by basically pushing unwanted adverts for unwanted products onto your machine, in the hope that you won’t be able to uninstall them, and will finally buy them (see item #3 above).

Unfortunately a standard user assumes that if a hardware item comes with a disk, that disk is there for a good reason – and so installs the lot. Sometimes this is just an annoyance, but sometimes it’s more sinister – bundled software often stops the PC functioning correctly. The worst offenders seem to be the software that comes with wireless network adapters. For some reason they all want to turn off Window’s standard wireless zero-configuration system, and install their own. Sadly, their own offerings often don’t work (especially if they were written pre-XP) and the user is left with a completely non-functioning wireless system. Had the user simply plugged in the hardware and let Windows do the rest, it probably would have worked. The instructions said to install the software – and possibly stung by all the geeks who kept telling them to “RTFM” – they did so.

5. That There Is A Choice Of Software

Odds are that you’re reading this on Firefox – or if not, as a reader of a coding blog, you at least know the name of the browser you’re using. This almost certainly isn’t the case for the majority of PC users – they don’t use a browser, they use the internet (or if not the internet, then they use msn, facebook, google, or whatever). Most people simply use the browser as a means to an end. The same goes for music players, email clients (generally dictated by their ISP), and anti-virus (generally the one with the biggest display in the local PC shop).

Unfortunately this means that when things go wrong, or go expensive, or go ad-ridden, these users aren’t even aware they can change. Adverts on the web are annoying, but if you have no idea you can change your browser and install an ad-blocker, you have no choice but to suffer them. This also means that poor software can survive in the marketplace – since for correctly positioned, pushed, and marketed software, there ceases to even be a marketplace.

6. What Updates Do

While writing this article – the first two weeks of September – my laptop has installed updates on the 1st, 4th, 9th, 11th and 14th of the month. Since this is a rather slow laptop, that means that if I choose to install them, I have to put up with bad performance, and if I don’t, I have to put up with repeated nagging. Even when I do install them, I know that in another couple of days they’ll be back.

I know updates are necessary – but do we need them every three days? Do they need to be quite so slow? And do they have to nag when I’m trying to use my PC – couldn’t they wait a while to see if the screensaver kicks in, as that’s likely to be a better time than now, now, now.

7. Software Licensing

We need to put aside a discussion of whether software should be free or not for this one, and let’s just assume that people are happy paying for software for now.

The problem is that buying software isn’t really like buying other goods – what you buy isn’t the box, or the media, but a license. With normal goods, once you’ve purchased it, you keep hold it, and if it turns out to be an illegal purchase, someone (eg the police) have to come and physically remove it. With software, if the vendor decides it’s not a valid purchase, then the software magically stops working, with no easy recourse for the customer.

I’ve come across many cases of people who thought they were legitimately purchasing software, but in fact weren’t – either purchasing from someone who was knowingly selling illegal software, or purchasing from someone who believed they had the right to sell, but didn’t. Either way, the honest software purchasers had no immediate way of knowing the software they were buying wasn’t legit.

To be fair, most software vendors are taking steps to improve this – although the cynic in me says this is mainly to protect revenue streams, not customers.

8. What Memory (RAM) Is For

I think most computer users have a pretty good idea what disk storage is for – that’s where their files are stored. What I think users have a bigger problem with is volatile memory. It’s very difficult to describe to a non-techie what RAM actually does – just saying “it’s what running programs use” doesn’t give a full description by any means.

Making the problem worse is that fact that most consumer PCs are sold with the bare minimum of RAM. Users can easily see that they have a good amount of disk storage free, but it’s more difficult to get a feeling for whether they have enough RAM. Most users simply don’t realise that computers don’t have to be slow, and don’t have to spend all their time swapping virtual memory.

9. How To Use Networking

As computers become cheaper, many households now have more than one. As that happens, this question is asked of me more and more often: “I’ve saved my files on the office computer; how can I get them on the laptop?”. The first couple of times, I set up a simple home network and created shortcuts to shared folders on each desktop. Unfortunately, this didn’t really cut it.

I think the main problem is that home networking fundamentally doesn’t fit in with most people’s work patterns – if they’re working on the laptop (say), why would the office computer be switched on? Having to leave both computers on just doesn’t fit. From the user’s point of view, sometimes the files are there (when the other computer is on), and sometimes they’re not.

I’ve found that solutions like Dropbox are much more palatable – while all the home computers might not be switched on, the internet connection almost always is. The networking in this case is transparent – the user doesn’t have to do a thing – and the files are magically up-to-date on all their computers.

10. The Display Is Not The Computer

For a long time, the sheer size of CRT monitors led many users to assume the monitor was the computer, and if they thought about the box below the desk at all, they thought it was “the hard-drive”. Now that monitors are much slimmer, people understand that the monitor is just a display mechanism, and the computer actually is under the desk.

Where it all goes a little confusing is when the computer in question isn’t near the display in front of the user – remote desktop, remote assistance, and the like. Even more flummoxing seems to be the notion of servers in general – for some reason a computer without a display unit doesn’t seem to be easily understandable. Despite the familiarity of the web, the idea that accessing a website involves a computer, often running a familar operating system, somewhere remote, seems a difficult one.

Any More?

Have I missed any other concepts that are repeatedly misunderstood? Any common problems you have to deal with? Let me know!

Bash Shortcuts

Javeed Abdul — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:02:07 +0000

Keyboard shortcut	Action
Navigation
Ctrl-A	Go to the beginning of the line (note that if you use GNU screen, you can use the Home button to do this, especially considering that Ctrl-A is a special control character in screen).
Ctrl-E	Go to the end of the line (note that if you use GNU screen, you can use the End button to do this).
Alt-B (or ESC, left arrow)	Jump back one word using a non-alphanumeric character as delimiter.
Alt-F (or ESC, right arrow)	Jump forward one word using a non-alphanumeric character as delimiter.
Ctrl-PGUP or Shift-PGUP	This may or may not work, and it works differently on different console apps. It will either scroll up one line at a time, 1 page at a time, or it may not work at all. I’m inclined to think it’s not a bash shortcut at all.
Ctrl-PGDN or Shift-PGDN	Same as the above but scrolling is done in the opposite direction.
Up/Down	Previous/Next command in history. This one is way too obvious but I’m including it for completeness.
Ctrl-R	History search. For example, Ctrl-R svn Ctrl-R Ctrl-R … will cycle through all recently run commands with the ‘svn’ in them. It is one of the most useful shortcuts in bash.
Command Line Manipulation
Ctrl-W	Cut one word backwards using white space as delimiter.
Alt-BACKSPACE	Cut one word backwards using a non-alphanumeric character as delimiter (different from Ctrl-W, for example, abc;bcd will cut to abc;).
Ctrl-K	Cut everything forward to end of line.
Ctrl-U	Cut everything backwards to beginning of line.
Ctrl-T	Transpose the current character with the previous one. I almost never use this. Never mind, I never use it, but someone might find it useful.
Alt-T	Transpose the word at cursor with the one before cursor. In other words, swap them around.
Ctrl-Y	Paste whatever was cut by the last cut command.
Ctrl-V	Insert the next character literally. For example, Ctrl-V TAB inserts the actual TAB character. This shortcut is often misunderstood because of mistyping Ctrl-V and not realizing what it does.
Ctrl-_	Undo the last command. Don’t forget – it’s Ctrl-Shift-MINUS, not Ctrl-MINUS.
Alt-R	Revert all changes to current line. Very useful if you accidentally modify a command in history.
Alt-U/Alt-L/Alt-C	Uppercase/lowercase/capitalize from cursor to end of word and move cursor past end of word.
Terminal control
Ctrl-L	Clear screen while keeping whatever is already typed in the command line intact.
Ctrl-S	Suspend currently running terminal.
Ctrl-Q	Unsuspend the terminal suspended by Ctrl-S. You need to be aware of this shortcut because 99% of the time you’ve accidentally pressed Ctrl-S and need to undo its effects.
Ctrl-Z	Suspend the currently running process (usually followed by bg to resume it in the background or fg to resume in the foreground).
TAB	Autocomplete. Start typing, then hit TAB. You will either get a list of possible completion values (2 TABs needed) or the only choice will be filled in (only 1 TAB is needed). This shortcut is quite obvious and well known, so I put it at the bottom of the list.

Security Software Tools for Linux

Javeed Abdul — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 07:06:26 +0000

Linux is a hacker’s dream computer operating system. It supports tons of tools and utilities for cracking passwords, scanning network vulnerabilities, and detecting possible intrusions. I have here a collection of 10 of the best hacking and security software tools for Linux. Please always keep in mind that these tools are not meant to harm, but to protect.

1. John the Ripper

John the Ripper is a free password cracking software tool initially developed for the UNIX operating system. It is one of the most popular password testing/breaking programs as it combines a number of password crackers into one package, autodetects password hash types, and includes a customizable cracker. It can be run against various encrypted password formats including several crypt password hash types most commonly found on various Unix flavors (based on DES, MD5, or Blowfish), Kerberos AFS, and Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 LM hash. Additional modules have extended its ability to include MD4-based password hashes and passwords stored in LDAP, MySQL and others.

2. Nmap

Nmap is my favorite network security scanner. It is used to discover computers and services on a computer network, thus creating a “map” of the network. Just like many simple port scanners, Nmap is capable of discovering passive services on a network despite the fact that such services aren’t advertising themselves with a service discovery protocol. In addition Nmap may be able to determine various details about the remote computers. These include operating system, device type, uptime,software product used to run a service, exact version number of that product, presence of some firewall techniques and, on a local area network, even vendor of the remote network card.

Nmap runs on Linux, Microsoft Windows, Solaris, and BSD (including Mac OS X), and also on AmigaOS. Linux is the most popular nmap platform and Windows the second most popular.

3. Nessus

Nessus is a comprehensive vulnerability scanning software. Its goal is to detect potential vulnerabilities on the tested systems such as:

-Vulnerabilities that allow a remote cracker to control or access sensitive data on a system.
-Misconfiguration (e.g. open mail relay, missing patches, etc).
-Default passwords, a few common passwords, and blank/absent passwords on some system accounts. Nessus can also call Hydra (an external tool) to launch a dictionary attack.
-Denials of service against the TCP/IP stack by using mangled packets

Nessus is the world’s most popular vulnerability scanner, estimated to be used by over 75,000 organizations worldwide. It took first place in the 2000, 2003, and 2006 security tools survey from SecTools.Org.

4. chkrootkit

chkrootkit (Check Rootkit) is a common Unix-based program intended to help system administrators check their system for known rootkits. It is a shell script using common UNIX/Linux tools like the strings and grep commands to search core system programs for signatures and for comparing a traversal of the /proc filesystem with the output of the ps (process status) command to look for discrepancies.

It can be used from a “rescue disc” (typically a Live CD) or it can optionally use an alternative directory from which to run all of its own commands. These techniques allow chkrootkit to trust the commands upon which it depend a bit more.

There are inherent limitations to the reliability of any program that attempts to detect compromises (such as rootkits and computer viruses). Newer rootkits may specifically attempt to detect and compromise copies of the chkrootkit programs or take other measures to evade detection by them.

5. Wireshark

Wireshark is a free packet sniffer computer application used for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and communications protocol development, and education. In June 2006, the project was renamed from Ethereal due to trademark issues.

The functionality Wireshark provides is very similar to tcpdump, but it has a GUI front-end, and many more information sorting and filtering options. It allows the user to see all traffic being passed over the network (usually an Ethernet network but support is being added for others) by putting the network interface into promiscuous mode.

Wireshark uses the cross-platform GTK+ widget toolkit, and is cross-platform, running on various computer operating systems including Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. Released under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Wireshark is freesoftware.

6. netcat

netcat is a computer networking utility for reading from and writing to network connections on either TCP or UDP.

Netcat was voted the second most useful network security tool in a 2000 poll conducted by insecure.org on the nmap users mailing list. In 2003, it gained fourth place, a position it also held in the 2006 poll.

The original version of netcat is a UNIX program. Its author is known as *Hobbit*. He released version 1.1 in March of 1996.

Netcat is fully POSIX compatible and there exist several implementations, including a rewrite from scratch known as GNU netcat.

7. Kismet

Kismet is a network detector, packet sniffer, and intrusion detection system for 802.11 wireless LANs. Kismet will work with any wireless card which supports raw monitoring mode, and can sniff 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g traffic.

Kismet is unlike most other wireless network detectors in that it works passively. This means that without sending any loggable packets, it is able to detect the presence of both wireless access points and wireless clients, and associate them with each other.

Kismet also includes basic wireless IDS features such as detecting active wireless sniffing programs including NetStumbler, as well as a number of wireless network attacks.

8. hping

hping is a free packet generator and analyzer for the TCP/IP protocol. Hping is one of the de facto tools for security auditing and testing of firewalls and networks, and was used to exploit the idle scan scanning technique (also invented by the hping author), and now implemented in the Nmap Security Scanner. The new version of hping, hping3, is scriptable using the Tcl language and implements an engine for string based, human readable description of TCP/IP packets, so that the programmer can write scripts related to low level TCP/IP packet manipulation and analysis in very short time.

Like most tools used in computer security, hping is useful to both system administrators and crackers (or script kiddies).

9. Snort

Snort is a free and open source Network Intrusion prevention system (NIPS) and network intrusion detection (NIDS) capable of performing packet logging and real-time traffic analysis on IP networks.

Snort performs protocol analysis, content searching/matching, and is commonly used to actively block or passively detect a variety of attacks and probes, such as buffer overflows, stealth port scans, web application attacks, SMB probes, and OS fingerprinting attempts, amongst other features. Thesoftware is mostly used for intrusion prevention purposes, by dropping attacks as they are taking place. Snort can be combined with othersoftware such as SnortSnarf, sguil, OSSIM, and the Basic Analysis and Security Engine (BASE) to provide a visual representation of intrusion data. With patches for the Snort source from Bleeding Edge Threats, support for packet stream antivirus scanning with ClamAV and network abnormality with SPADE in network layers 3 and 4 is possible with historical observation.

10. tcpdump

tcpdump is a common computer network debugging tool that runs under the command line. It allows the user to intercept and display TCP/IP and other packets being transmitted or received over a network to which the computer is attached.

In some Unix-like operating systems, a user must have superuser privileges to use tcpdump because the packet capturing mechanisms on those systems require elevated privileges. However, the -Z option may be used to drop privileges to a specific unprivileged user after capturing has been set up. In other Unix-like operating systems, the packet capturing mechanism can be configured to allow non-privileged users to use it; if that is done, superuser privileges are not required.

The user may optionally apply a BPF-based filter to limit the number of packets seen by tcpdump; this renders the output more usable on networks with a high volume of traffic.

* Ettercap

Ettercap is a console-based network sniffer/interceptor/logger that is capable of intercepting traffic on a network segment, capturing passwords, and conducting active eavesdropping against a number of common protocols. Ettercap supports active and passive dissection of many protocols (including ciphered ones) and provides many features for network and host analysis. Ettercap also has the ability to actively or passively find other poisoners on the LAN.

* Nikto

Nikto is a web server scanner that is known to perform comprehensive tests against web servers for multiple items, including over 3500 potentially dangerous files/CGIs, versions on over 900 servers, and version specific problems on over 250 servers. It performs generic and server type specific checks. It also captures and prints any cookies received.

* OpenSSH

OpenSSH is a Free and Open Source version of the SSH connectivity tools providing encrypted communication sessions over a computer network. It encrypts all traffic (includingpasswords ) to effectively eliminate eavesdropping, connection hijacking, and other attacks. Additionally, OpenSSH provides secure tunneling capabilities and several authentication methods, and supports all SSH protocol versions.

* Aircrack-ng

Aircrack-ng is a wireless tool and password cracker. It is a network software suite consisting of a detector, packet sniffer, WEP and WPA/WPA2-PSK cracker and analysis tool for 802.11 wireless LANs.

* Tripwire

Tripwire is a security and data integrity tool that is useful for monitoring and alerting on specific file change(s) on a range of systems. Used with system files on a regular basis, Tripwire can notify system administrators of corrupted or tampered files, so damage control measures can be taken in a timely manner.

* Metasploit Framework

Metasploit Framework is an advanced open-source platform for developing, testing, and using exploit code. The extensible model through which payloads, encoders, no-op generators, and exploits can be integrated has made it possible to use the Metasploit Framework as an outlet for cutting-edge exploitation research. It ships with hundreds of exploits, as you can see in their online exploit-building demo.

* THC Hydra

THC (The Hacker’s Choice) Hydra uses a dictionary attack to test for weak or simple passwords on one or many remote hosts running a variety of different services. It was designed as a proof-of-concept utility to demonstrate the ease of cracking poorly chosenpasswords . It can perform rapid dictionary attacks against more then 30 protocols, including telnet, ftp, http, https, smb, several databases, and much more.

* Dsniff

Dsniff is suite of powerful network auditing and penetration-testing tools and utilities that includes code to parse many different application protocols and extract interesting information. The information that can be obtained from this sniff application are: usernames andpasswords, web pages being visited, contents of email, etc.

* RainbowCrack

RainbowCrack is a password hash cracker that makes use of a large-scale time-memory trade-off. It differs from “conventional” brute force crackers in that it uses large pre-computed tables called rainbow tables to reduce the length of time needed to crack a password drastically.

* rkhunter

rkhunter scans for rootkits, backdoors and possible local exploits. It does this by comparing SHA-1 hashes of important files with known good ones in online database, searching for default directories (of rootkits), wrong permissions, hidden files, suspicious strings in kernel modules, and special testsfor Linux and FreeBSD.

Do you have a favorite security software tool for Linux? Feel free to comment and tell us about it.

Creating Web Design Layouts

Javeed Abdul — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 04:26:10 +0000

Feel free to check out these Innovative Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Web Design Layouts and take a look at the tips shared by the authors. You may be amazed at how simple procedures can create spectacular effects. Apart from the learning experience that you will gain, you’ll also enjoy the reading through this article!!!

Create a Slick and Minimalist Web Layout in Photoshop

The tutorial will help you create a web layout with minimal designs.

How to Design a Band Website Layout in Photoshop

Learn to create a band-themed layout through this tutorial.

Design a Minimal and Modern Portfolio Layout with Photoshop

This tutorial will teach you to create a modern portfolio layout in Photoshop.

Create a Very Simple Portfolio Web Layout with Photoshop

In this tutorial, you will be guided in creating a simple web layout in Photoshop.

Create a Grungy, Translucent Web Portfolio Design

This tutorial will guide you in creating a grungy and translucent web layout.

Create a Fashion Web Layout (PSD Template) Using Photoshop

Learn to create a fashion web layout in Photoshop.

Create a Company/business Web Layout using Photoshop

The tutorial will guide you in creating a business type web layout.

Design a Web Template using the “960 Grid System”

Create a web layout using another cool system.

Create An Orange Web Layout Using Photoshop

Here is a tutorial on creating an orange-inspired web layout in Photoshop.

Create a Green/eco Friendly/environmental Web Layout

This tutorial is on creating environment-themed web layout.

Create a Portfolio/business Website Layout

Another tutorial in creating a business-themed layout is illustrated here.

How To Create a Clean and Colorful Web Layout – Photoshop Tutorial

In this tutorial, you will be guided to create a clean and colorful web layout in Photoshop.

Graphic Design Studio Web Layout

The tutorial is on creating a graphic web layout in Photoshop.

Create a Magazine Wordpress Theme from Scratch in Photoshop

Create a magazine-themed layout in Photoshop.

Modern and Colorful Web Layout

Here is another tutorial on creating a colorful web layout.

How to Make a Creative Blog Layout

Learn to create unique blog layout with this tutorial.

Create a Gritty Website Layout

In this tutorial you will be guided in creating a gritty web layout in Photoshop.

How to Make an Impressive Blog Layout in Photoshop

The tutorial is on creating impressive web layout in Photoshop.

How to Make a Light and Sleek Web Layout in Photoshop

Learn to create sleek web layout in Photoshop.

Create a Watercolor-Themed Website Design with Photoshop

In this tutorial, an illustration of creating watercolor—themed web layout is given.

How to Make a Highly-Textured Site Layout in Photoshop

Create a highly textured web layout through this tutorial.

Create a Web Layout with 3D Elements using Photoshop

Here is a tutorial in creating a web layout with 3D elements.

Design a Typography Layout

Learn to create a typographic web layout in Photoshop.

Create a Modern Blog Layout

The tutorial is on creating a modern web layout in Photoshop.

How to Create a Unique Colorful Site Layout

This tutorial illustrates creating unique and colorful web layouts in Photoshop.

Create a Simple Layout for Architecture or Real Estate

In this tutorial, an illustration on creating web layout for architecture and real estate concept is given.

Design Grunge Wordpress Theme

Create a grunge-themed layout with another set of techniques for this tutorial.

How to Create a “Worn Paper” Web Layout Using Photoshop

Here is a tutorial on creating a paper-themed web layout in Photoshop.

Designing Freelancer Portfolio Layout

The tutorial is on creating a freelance-theme web layout in Photoshop.

Design a Light Wordpress Theme in Photoshop

This tutorial is on creating a light web layout in Photoshop.

Photographer Portfolio Layout

Create a photo-themed web layout through the techniques offered by this tutorial.

How to Make a Green & Sleek Web Layout in Photoshop

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Simple Troubleshooting steps in Linux

Javeed Abdul — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 03:21:50 +0000

Hardware

Getting ram information

cat /proc/meminfo

or if you want to get just the amount of ram you can do:

cat /proc/meminfo | head -n 1

Another fun thing to do with ram is actually open it up and take a peek. This next command will show you all the string (plain text) values in ram.

sudo dd if=/dev/mem | cat | strings

Getting cpu info

Sometimes in troubleshooting we want to know what processor we are dealing with along with how much cpu is currently being used by our OS and programs. We can do this with these two commands.

cat /proc/cpuinfo

top

Check the temperature of your CPU

Keeping a computer within a safe temperature is the key to maintaining a stable system.

cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature

List PCI and USB devices

To list all the PCI devices in your system issues the following command:

lspci

For USB use:

lsusb

Check out how much hard drive space is left

df -h

See what hard drives are currently detected

It is often times helpful to know what hard drives are connected to a system and what name was given them in the Linux directory. This info allows us to mount the hard drive and manipulate it.

sudo fdisk -l

Installed Programs

Packages

Ever want to find all the packages that are installed on your system? You can find all the packages and also find out why they are on your system. You can even determine what packages depend on them if any.

Find all installed packages

dpkg –get-selections | less

Find out why a packages is installed and what depends on it

aptitude why packagename

Find out where the package stores all of its files

dpkg -L packagename

Kill a process

ps -A | grep ProgramName

kill 7207

Miscellaneous

Go to a terminal

Ctrl + Alt + f3

return with, Ctrl + Alt + f7

Show all network connections

There are many great network scanners and assessment tools available for Linux but netstat is a very easy to use often a first step in troubleshooting network issues. We will leave the rest of the network tools for a later article as there is so much to cover.

netstat

List all files that are currently open on the system

This command will allow you to see all the files that are currently open on your system. Limiting the directory or coupling this command with grep is often useful for finding files that are still open restricting the ability to unmount a device. Lsof will also ouput the process id or PID. You can then kill the process using the kill command above.

lsof

Keep an eye on something for awhile

The watch command will repeat a command at a set interval (default 2 seconds) and output the response. This is useful for watching directories that change, watching hard drives fill up when a lot of data is being transfered, or using it with lsusb to watch for USB devices being plugged in.

watch ls

watch df -h

Find where a binary is stored and its libraries

Often times when running a cron command you want to include the absolute path to the command. Sometimes I run scheduled PHP tasks. This can be acomplished by using the ‘whereis‘ command.

whereis php5

Logs

See if you have kernel boot issues

dmesg | less

For more logs just cd into the /var/log directory and start using, cat, less, tail, grep, find or any other tool to view and search.

Easy Cd case

Javeed Abdul — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:35:34 +0000

Easy Cd Case ….NO Glue …. For Everybody…. – Amazing videos are here