Evernote and Nix/NeverNote on Ubuntu 10.04

Evernote is a great tool. I absolutely love it. The only con, is that it's nto available natively for Linux. So I have to run it under the Windows Emulator or wine. The installation is fairly simple.

1. wget http://evernote.s3.amazonaws.com/win4/public/Evernote_4.5.0.5229.exe
2. wine Evernote_4.5.0.5229.exe

Obviously not running natively there is a slight performance lag. This may be attributed to my 5 year old laptop. Although it's still usable, the slow synchronization soon becomes tiresome. Fortunately there is a Linux native client called NeverNote[2].

1. sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vincent-c/nevernote
2. sudo apt-get update
3. sudo apt-get install nevernote
4. nixnote

NixNote is a bit ugly, but functional. Definitely faster than running Evernote in emulation.  The feature that I like best is that you are able to encrypt the NixNote database using AES when you shutdown. This is a definite plus in my books.

Therefore, if you can live with the degraded performance, then Evernote will do, but if you need to work faster, want that extra bit of security, and an ugly interface does not bother you, then give NixNote (aka NeverNote) a try.

References:

1. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/35661/how-to-install-evernote-4.0-in-ubuntu-using-wine/
2. http://www.techdrivein.com/2011/06/nevernote-open-source-evernote-clone.html

Cisco console from Ubuntu 10.04

It's pretty easy to set-up Cisco serial console connectivity on Ubuntu 10.04. The usual way is to use minicom. The serial ports usually called COM1-4 usually have the following address range;

1. COM1 - 3E8
2. COM2 - 2F8
3. COM3 - 3E8
4. COM4 - 2E8

To complete the setup first determine the address used for COM1 (or whichever serial port you wish to use) on your machine  query the kernel buffer ring using the dmesg command, then install and configure the minicom, modem emulation tool.

1. sudo dmesg | grep tty
2. sudo apt-get install minicom
3. sudo minicom -s # Configure the terminal to use 9600-8-N-1 and save as dfl
4. sudo minicom

References:

1. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CiscoConsole
2. http://useopensource.blogspot.com/2007/01/using-cisco-console-in-linux.html

KeePass on Ubuntu 10.04

KeePass is a very popular password management software. One of my client uses this for their systems and I was given a copy of their database. Since I mostly use linux when I am working, I needed a way to get this working on Ubuntu 10.04. Instructions are widely available, but again for my benefit, I have documented them here as step-by-step guide for myself. At the time of this blog post the 2.x version of KeePass was 2.16

Firstly install Mono. For more details refer to the Badger ports website[1].

1. Edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file
• Add the lines
• # For mono 2.6 -> needed by KeePass
• deb http://badgerports.org lucid main
2. cd /etc/apt
3. sudo wget http://badgerports.org/directhex.ppa.asc
4. sudo apt-key add directhex.ppa.asc
5. sudo apt-get update
6. sudo apt-get install mono mono-devel
7. mono --version
• # Confirm the mono version is >= 2.6

Download and install the KeePass from the KeePass website[2].

1. sudo mkdir -p /opt/KeePass2
2. cd /opt/KeePass2
3. wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/keepass/KeePass-2.16.zip
4. sudo unzip KeePass-2.16.zip

Execute the KeePass application

1. mono /opt/KeePass2/KeePass.exe &

There does appear to be a lot of debug information (am assuming its debug information) written to the terminal, but these should be safe to ignore.

References:

1. http://badgerports.org
2. http://keepass.info

Installing joomscan on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

OWASP Joomla! Security Scanner that "detects file inclusion, sql injection, command execution vulnerabilities of a target Joomla! web site." However it appears to have been neglected, but is promised to be updated soon.

1. cd /opt
2. sudo apt-get install -y libtest-www-mechanize-perl
3. svn co https://joomscan.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/joomscan joomscan
4. cd joomscan
5. chmod 755 trunk/joomscan.pl
6. trunk/joomscan.pl update

Installing Metasploit 4.0.0 on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

Installing metasploit is quite easy. I have documented the installation instructions that I used below, however its just as simple to follow the more comprehensive instructions from the Rapid7/Metasploit site[1] (https://community.rapid7.com/docs/DOC-1296).

1. sudo apt-get install -y ruby libopenssl-ruby libyaml-ruby libdl-ruby libiconv-ruby libreadline-ruby irb ri rubygems
2. wget http://updates.metasploit.com/data/releases/framework-4.0.0.tar.bz2
3. sudo mkdir /opt/metasploit4
4. sudo bunzip framework-4.0.0.tar.bz2
5. sudo tar xvf framework-4.0.0.tar
6. sudo mv msf3 /opt/metasploit4
7. sudo chown -R root:root /opt/metasploit4/msf3
8. sudo ln -s /opt/metasploit4/msf3/msf* /usr/local/bin
9. cd /opt/metasploit4/msf3
10. sudo svn update
11. sudo crontab -e -u root # Enter "1 * * * * * /usr/bin/svn update  /opt/metasploit4/msf3/ >> /var/log/msf3update.log 2>&1"
12. sudo apt-get install -y mysql-server
13. sudo apt-get install -y rubygems libmysqlclient-dev
14. sudo apt-get install -y ruby-dev
15. sudo gem install mysql

References:

1. https://community.rapid7.com/docs/DOC-1296

Ubuntu apt-get error

When performing an "apt-get update" I got the following error

Reading package lists... Error!

E: Dynamic MMap ran out of room. Please increase the size of APT::Cache-Limit. Current value: 25165824. (man 5 apt.conf)

E: Error occurred while processing xxx

E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/xxx

W: Unable to munmap

E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

Am unsure why this is happening, but suspect it has something to do with the cache size allocated for the repositories. A quick Google search revealed a debian bug1 that helped.

sudo echo 'APT::Cache-Limit "125829120";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/30cache

Seems to have fixed the problem, a quick sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade had me happily hacking away again.

References:

1. https://bugs.launchpad.net/debian/+source/apt/+bug/24626

Installing Metasploit Framework on Ubuntu

Recently, I had to install Metasploit Framework on Ubuntu. I thought I would document the instructions here. Be sure to check the downloads page on the Metasploit website (http://www.metasploit.com) to get the current version. At the time of this blog the latest version was 3.5.0.

1. wget http://updates.metasploit.com/data/releases/framework-3.5.0.tar.bz2
2. bunzip2 framework-3.5.0.tar.bz2
3. tar xvf framework-3.5.0.tar
4. sudo cp -a msf3 /opt/msf3
5. sudo ln -sf /opt/msf3/msf* /usr/local/bin/
6. sudo svn update /opt/msf3/
7. sudo crontab -e -u root # Enter "1 * * * * /usr/bin/svn update  /opt/msf3/ >> /var/log/msf3update.log 2>&1"

 References:

1. http://www.metasploit.com/redmine/projects/framework/wiki/Install_Ubuntu
2. http://www.offensive-security.com/metasploit-unleashed/Metasploit_Unleashed_Information_Security_Training

Scapy on Ubuntu

I won't introduce Scapy as there are lots of overview, introductions, tutorials and guides available on Scapy, so just Google for it. I though I'd blog about my install on Ubuntu just in case I need to come back to it at some stage and cannot recall exactly what and how I installed;

1. sudo apt-get update
2. sudo apt-get install tcpdump 
3. sudo apt-get install python
4. sudo apt-get install python-scapy
5. sudo apt-get install graphviz 
6. sudo apt-get install imagemagick 
7. sudo apt-get install python-gnuplot 
8. sudo apt-get install python-crypto
9. sudo apt-get install python-pyx

I may be putting up some scapy script on my webpage in the near future in case anyone is interested. I used scapy for Digital Forensics

Ubuntu 9.10 does not boot up after hibernate!!!

I've been running Ubuntu 9.10 desktp on my HP nx6120 notebook with some success for a little while now. It performs well for my TeX work, occasional web-browsing, VPN, RDP and e-mails. The GUI is enhanced using Mac4Lin. I loved the hibernate feature until late this afternoon when it refused to bootup after hibernating. I would get the splash screen and then nothing... curses!!!.

I managed to find a work-around but am still not sure what the problem was:

1. Boot up the machine with a rescue CDROM
2. Confirm the root partition for the Ubuntu install (in my case it was /dev/sda8, although I only have IDE drives)
3. Boot up the machine and wait for the GRUB prompt
4. Press "e" to edit the entry
5. Replace the "root=UUID..." with "root=/dev/..." on the "linux" line entry
6. Add the entry "no_console_suspend" on the same line
7. Press the "Tab" key to complete the Emacs edit
8. Press "Ctrl+x" to continue booting

Once the machine has bootup as normal, edit the GRUB configuration

1. sudo vi /etc/default/grub 
1. Edit the file to uncomment GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID
2. Edit the file to add no_console_suspend in the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX
3. Save the file and exit
2. sudo /usr/sbin/update-grub

References

• http://computergyan.wordpress.com/tag/ubuntu/
• http://lovehateubuntu.blogspot.com/2009/08/ubuntus-hibernate-wont-wake-up.html

Linux for the Desktop

I have mostly been a Linux from the command line kind of person. I would rarely come across X Windows. Recently I decided to experiment with Linux for the desktop. Needless to say have heard people raving about Ubuntu. Furthermore I have mostly been a Redhat user, and had only used the Debian distribution briefly in the past.

I got the Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix off the Australian PC Authority magazine to have a bit of a play with. It was good because it actually let me resize the existing partitions on my notebook. I had a play, and was moderately impressed by it. The interface was reasonably fluid and the performance was ok. However it was not too my liking. I felt that it lacked a lot of features and flexibility, would would be ideal for the average desktop user, just looking for netbook features.

Needing more features and a complete set of Linux utilities and applications, I downloaded the Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop ISO image and installed off the CD. The first step was to update all the package, for some reason the Austrlian servers were not reachable and the connection timed out. I changed the "Update Manager" "Settings" to "Download from:" the "Main Server". This worked well.

Next step was to make is look like an Apple Mac :) using the Mac4Lin installation. Before running the installation program I had to execute "sudo apt-get install emerald" to make things a bit easier. I previous Google suggested creating the following folders "~/.themes" and "~/.icons". This was done and I ran the install script. So far so good.


Now to get the AWN (Avant Window Navigation) dock working.  "sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigation". 10 seconds and a couple of automatic dependency installs later the "Awn Manager" was available under "Preferences", and after adding the Max4Lin theme in AWN, and setting it to auto start, I launched the AWN and there was much coolness to be observed...

To get the complete look you need to go through all the steps in the PDF manual available from Mac4Lin but the end result is quite satisfying in a cheezy sort of way. For people like me who cannot afford to pay for a proper Apple mac, this poor man's mac combines the GUI of (similar to) an Apple and the flexibility of a stable Linux distribution.