Howto: OpenVPN Server

What is a VPN?

VPN stands for virtual private network. It allows you to connect securely to a private network via internet and work as if you were a part of that network. It is based on the client/server architecture and it works on almost all platforms including FreeBSD, Linux, Windows and MAC OS X. It allows you to work from home as if you were in the office. Virtual private networks help distant colleagues work together, much like desktop sharing.

Installing Open VPN at the server

There are a couple of great links that i should point out before i go on.

http://openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/documentation/howto.html#install

http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/278691-installing-and-configuring-openvpn-in-linux-servers

These two sites are great help in installing your openvpn software. And cover everything.

Some notes:
Open Vpn is a program which encrypts the data from your CLIENT computer to the OPENVPN SERVER. And from then on all traffic is un-encrypted. (Unless your using ssl over http, etc etc)

So when you are installing openvpn, this will be the network that you decide to go "through".
So for the average user, this might not be the solution.

Cyberghost:

Download > Here

This is a VPN client which is for the every day user. All you have to do is download the client. Install it by following the prompts, create a user account and now you are highly secure in your internet activites!

And if your lucky enough you will be able to find a Coupon Code for free 12 Months Premium, possibly here

Enjoy :D

File Security

If your anything like me and know exactly that when you have a file on a HDD and you have a password on your computer (eg a login password) you know damn well that its NOT secure. Anyone with some knowledge knows that once you have physical access to a system, you can easily load up a new Operating System and read ALL the files on the HDD.

If someone has gained access to your HDD, Physical access, they can easily just plug it into their system and read all the files which are not encrypted. This is also a problem with linux & Mac systems as well. Someone can easily plug in a hdd and read all the data.


Truecrypt:
To combat this as many of us do want to it comes at a price. The price of functionality. Using "Truecrypt" is possibly one of the best programs to use (See Image Above). It is cross-format compatible so all you windows and linux/mac users can have the knowledge that your data is secure.

The only downside of truecrypt is that if you encrypt a drive, lets say your external drive. Then when you insert it into your computer, it will assume its blank/not-formatted, and for windows users will ask you if you want to format the drive. Which i find is a bit annoying. And when you are giving the drive to your friends to share... stuff... then you always have to go 'Dont Format!!' otherwise all your encrypted shit will now be gone and forever lost. There is no way around this. The other option with Truecrypt is to create 1 file. Which will contain your data. Ive found this quite good if you know what your file is, and can remember that its a truecrypt file.

Crypt Keeper:
The easiest way i have found is by using a program called "Crypt Keeper" You can easily encrypt a folder and due to how linux does its file system, (where everything is files) when you go into the folder it appears empty. +1 for open source.
Just a simple couple of clicks and you have a private-public key encryption system. Im not totally sure of the encryption system. But for ease of use, Crypt Keeper is definatly better than Truecrypt. But for the more technically advanced and the knowledge that if we were to loose our hdd, or someone was to find it, then we know that it is totally secure.

If anyone knows of any others leave me a comment and ill definatly have a look at them ;)

Internet Security

Sorry to those who were waiting for the VPN post, tiny setback, eg, i cbf working it out at the moment. Due to Uni being hectic and being WAY behind where i should be in assignment(s) wise, i figured i'd talk to you guys about Security, and then leading into (later) VPNs and how they can be helpful in securing your internet activites.

How you can be identified:

This site when you go to it > Proxy Judge's is what is called a proxy judge. It "Judges" how anonymous a proxy is. So if your reading this hopefully you know what a proxy is. Its when your connection is routed through a "proxy" and then onto the specified target.
There are 3 Levels of a web proxy. L1 L2 L3. L1 = High Anonymous, which means that when you are connecting through this proxy this proxy gives no indication at ALL that it is a proxy. L2 = Anonymous, which means that it does not show your IP address from which you are connecing through, BUT it can give some indication that it is a proxy. L3 = NonAnonymous In the header packets it shows the originating IP Address. Which is something that is not great if your trying to be anonymous.

What you can do about it:

The easiest way is to use a proxy for all non-personal connections, by finding one here or here and then adding them into your firefox, or chrome, or what not. eg:



There are also proxies called "Socks", which are completely anonymous compared to web based proxies. And usually stay up longer than web proxies do.

Enjoy your privacy, you have the right!

For those wanting to know more about VPN's lookup "OpenVpn". Its a package that you load into your *nix operating system, (On the server you connect through) and then you can use and vpn client to connect through it.

Slax: Cool features?

So as part of a course im undertaking, i have to use SLAX as a virtual machine network. I had never used Slax as an operating system and already knowing linux, it wasnt that big of a deal. We are using 3 images, a client, a server and a gateway. The gateway has 2 nic interfaces on it, which connect the server and client together. The server will have http running, dns, dhcp. All of this has been installed, cept we had to edit all the configs.

Some features i immediately realised that were slightly different. Slax does not have a similar features to apt-get or emerge. But they do not need it. Other distributions install each program and thus put their files all in different directories, slax on the other hand does not. Every program that you could install is called a Module. A simple ".lzm" package file which you just download from the slax website, and then run "activate package-1.0.lzm" and it moves it to the module directory. A quick restart and hey presto you have it working :D

Its actually quite easy. (surprising to me). A small annoyance is that init.d is not the main process. its rc.d. And all the config startup files are in rc.d/rc.filename. Only a small anoyance. But hey, its still pretty good. I have actually had more luck with slax and getting it to do what i wanted more often than i have my gentoo os.

All in all quite a nice system. Ill be updating with another post on how to create a VPN with Slax. Stay tuned ;)

Applications For Linux

Applications you just need for linux dont come around alot, but ill show you a couple that no-one should go without.

1. Conky

A great lightweight system monitor. Easily Configurable, (In the config file). And can be installed via your repository. (If on ubuntu / Gentoo/ Debian).

To download this conky > Download


2. Wine/Winetricks

So if you dont know what wine is, then your in for a treat. Wine stands for WINE Is Not an Emulator. It can run (and well) Nearly all windows applications. Including Steam, Calc. BF2. etc etc. And has an installer called Winetricks which makes installing these apps even easier!



3. NetHack
An old game which has been under development since terminals were basically invented. Its a rogue game which will always be a fun game, due to every time you start a new game every level is made to be Random ;) Nearly every distribution I install / re-install nethack is the first thing i install.



4. XChat
An irc client which is light weight, full featured and a must for any Linux user as 99% of problems can be fixed by asking a question in the right area. Find your distributions irc channel, and ask away. Just dont be greedy. I know by now you are already at the end of your rope, but try and stay calm, and all will be well.

Those are i think the main 4 that you need, that not everyone knows about. That are easy to install and dont cause a headache. I also encourage to load up Compiz-Fusion. And take a look at that as a Window Manager. It has some really cool features, (but can be a pain to install)

Annoyances with Linux vs Windows

Music

Aight, I've always been a windows dude, mainly cause thats what we all grew up with. Is that such a problem? But im liking linux more and more every day.... Until i decided to go, oh yeah ill load up vlc to listen to some music. But its just so clunky... Yes its fucking fantastic to view vids, and play music. But i love loading my music library into it, and hitting shuffle. You might say, hey vlc does it well. But its a personal choice, which is what linux is!





So i went searching for some good alternatives, Something lightweight like vlc, and still had that nice look and good gui, but with options to go that extra mile and tweak this or tweak that. Perfect, fucking found it. audacious



Its sleek, Sexy. Got a nice interface, cause you all you really want is your play list, and a good looking EQ. Its based off winamp, (but i dont like using winamp due to since v5-6 onwards its getting to that too clunky stage, where they just add in everything because they can type of shit)

I'd Highly suggest getting Audacious!

-------------------------------------
Day to Day Apps

Being a winblows user I'm use to win+r calc bam, i have my calculator up and i can type shit in...
Only thing i half miss. On my gentoo distribution, the whole point of gentoo is that its lightweight, and doesnt install the "Crap" that ubuntu or any other distro may do. But looking back now, i sometimes miss the small things. But mind you a quick "emerge calc", then realising that calc isnt a package, a quick "emerge xcalc" and ive got my calculator back.



Nothing fancy, just shit that i can go 4+4 and find out that it wasnt 9 like i was counting in my head. Or type 5318008, and lol

Still going to wonder how i could map win+R to terminal popping up ;) If you know give me a shout.

(PS How did you like my current Desktop/BG)

Wpa2 + N 270mbs with rt2860sta on Eeepc's

So with aurora the version for the staging rt2860sta drivers FUCKING SUCK MYFAT BALLS!

So after checking which version i had, they included fucking 2.2, when 2.4 is out.. that was smart. So if you want some good WPA and WPA2-AES/TKIP. Working action follow on!

Step 1

Download latest RT2860 driver source code from Ralink here. When your about to download, just hit next, you dont need the shitty email and name

Step 2

Open and extract the downloaded file to a temporary directory in your Home directory.
Quote:
tar xvzf 2010_07_16_RT2860_Linux_STA_v2.4.0.0.tar.bz2

Step 3

Using an editor such as the default Gedit, open the driver source code file ./os/linux/config.mk.
Quote:
gedit ./os/linux/config.mk

Use the find command to locate HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT and make sure it is set to yes. It should look like this when finished:

HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y
and do the same for:
HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y

Close and save this file.

Step 4

Using an editor such as the default Gedit, open the file ./common/cmm_wpa.c.
Quote:
gedit ./common/cmm_wpa.c

Use the find command to locate MIX_CIPHER_NOTUSE. Replace this entire line (keep on one line)with this code:

WPA_MIX_PAIR_CIPHER FlexibleCipher = WPA_TKIPAES_WPA2_TKIPAES;

Step 5

Perform these commands in a Terminal session one at a time. You can cut and paste. Using sudo puts you into Admin mode so you will be prompted for you Admin (probably) your default password.

sudo make
sudo make install
sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
sudo rmmod rt2860sta

Step 6

Rename the old rt2860sta.ko driver file to rt2860sta.ko.dist using a command such as:
sudo mv /lib/modules/2.6.*/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860/rt2860sta.ko rt2860sta.ko.dist

Note: You need to replace the asterisk with the actual directory name of your kernel. Consult your file system directory structure for this.

This is to prevent the old driver from being used. You could just delete the file as well I suppose.

Step 7

sudo depmod -a
sudo modprobe rt2860sta

After you issue the previous command you should see the Desktop top panel Wireless icon come to life as it tries to connect. You will be prompted for a WPA password. Give it a little while and it should connect.

Not sure this command is necessary but you can use if the Wireless isn’t started automatically.
sudo ifconfig ra0 up (Should already be up)

Step 8

Okay at this point you have made a lot of progress and should be happily surfing at up to 802.11n speeds. Take a break and marvel at your skills and the wonder of the Internet!

But, and this is a biggie, what happens if you ever reboot? Unfortunately, you are back at square one without the RT2860 driver being loaded after a reboot. To remedy this situation, read on.

Step 9

Copy the newly compiled driver from your temporary build directory in ./os/linux using a command like:
sudo cp rt2860sta.ko /lib/modules/2.6.*/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860/

Again replace the asterisk with the correct directory name.

Step 10

Update your modules boot file with the following command:
gksudo gedit /etc/modules

Add the following on a line at the end of the file.
rt2860sta

Close and save the file.

Step 11

Reboot and check to see that you are now automatically connecting to your wireless network

---------------

Enjoy some motherfucking N connectivity 135mbs+ bitch!

[Bash] Cracking md5,Sha-1,Mysql Hashes

So after falling upon my password hash which was just sitting in this website i realised... fuck... i really should change my password and while im at it ill make something which would help others in finding their hashes / plaintext.

So this pulls all the Hashes from hashash.in website and puts them in files titled hashesX-X.db

Script can be downloaded from:
Hashdump.sh > http://www.mediafire.com/?q06jzgeiqd9nob7
Hashsearch.sh > http://www.mediafire.com/?ayd8plqlb93oboa

Enjoy ;)

Installing Aurora / eeebuntu

Installing Aurora onto my 901

So this is my first blog, i hope you all enjoy my blog and if you find something useful then thats even better.

So after installing aurora onto my 901 eeepc i realised quickly that it didnt work due to my inability to use unetbootin. After realising that because of windows 7's annoying rights usage and even tho your in an administrators group, even tho 7 said it "finished" and came up with the shitty compatibility crap it was still running in the background (as i realised while i already hit the reset button). So after saying fuck u, to 7 i loaded up Gentoo (my other main distribution that Im quite liking atm) a quick emerge and hey presto i had unetbootin installed and i was ready to go.

After a correct install of the beta iso onto my 1gb flashdrive. And away i am to again fail installing it onto my compy. I correctly installed it onto my 4gb partition but then after apt-get update and dist-upgrade i soon realised that its already pretty close to 4gb and then looking at df -h i realised that there is 0 space left. So another re-install later onto my 16gb partition and im finally updated and going well.

For a quick install procedure for those choosing this as a distro. (Because there is no nice install instructions on the forums...)
Need:
1. Get unetbootin (apt-get install unetbootin or unetbootin homepage
2. Flashdrive of min 1gb.
3. Eb4 beta .iso > here
4. anyos

Install:
Grab unetbootin, install it, run it.
select iso and eb4beta.iso
select flashdrive and bam. wait for a quick second.
Once finished copying, smash that flashdrive into your usb ports and away you go. the grub will come up with a couple of options, just go the non-install one, cause they both do the same atm. the "use eeebuntu without fucking up my system".
Click on the "install eb4" icon and select all your preferences.

When you get to the hdd page, i'd suggest just hitting next and letting it re-format one of your drives. (i'd suggest a drive which is bigger than 4gb, unless you tell it to use 100mb of swap space and the rest for the / partition. because i had errors in doing it with 3.5gb of space left ^-^

WHEN YOU GET TO THE SUMMARY PAGE.
click on "Advanced" and select your HDD that you chose. (eg "sda"). Only choose the ones without the 1,2 or any numbers which means they are the actual hard disk, not a partition.

And how your fine, click next and your free to go.

Enjoy your new Aurora OS. Everything worked out of the box for me, and i can't find many major problems. (Besides from my next post which will be a couple of fixes for aurora which you can find on their forum.)

Next run some apt-get update, apt-get upgrade, and apt-get dist-upgrade. And enjoy the latest (but not really cause they havnt updated in a while) progs ;)

Enjoy

- James