HomeLab Headaches Ep.6

Meh, not really any head headaches today.  I got the MediaServer up and running since Tuesday night, with all my files available I took a few days to reap the fruits of my labor and watched a few of the videos and\or shows I haven't watched in a while, specially on a TV.

I have setup a WINXP SP2 and a WIN7 VMs.  Tried to setup a OSX 10.6 and it didn't happen.  I tried three times and once on my work pc and it still gave me the same error, which confirmed that my iso is BAD. : ( booooo So now I have to get my hands on a good OSX iso.

I attended Rapid7's "Using Metasploit on Kali Linux, the Evolution of BackTrack" webinar today.  It was pretty cool, from what I saw Kali Linux looks bad ass and I have downloaded the x32, x64 and the VM versions.  The x32 is going on my netbook that is collecting dust in my room, the x64 is just to have it and the VM may find it's way into my Virtualbox.  Also Rapid7 has a "metasploitable vulnerable machine" which I have downloaded as well to check out later.

One thing I liked about Kali Linux if I remember this correctly is that all of it's services are OFF by default so  its as the old slogan on Backtrack used to say "the quieter you become, the more you are able to hear...", so Kali is quiet by default lol.  Also the big change is from Ubuntu to Debian base linux, there was something about stream line updates, but I can't remember exactly what it was.

Next thing on the Home Lab is getting the network together.  Gotta bring out my Cisco bibles... i think they weight more then the router or the switch it self lol

Hitler and I feel the same about Google killing Google Reader

Poor Hitler, I too am pissed at Google killing Google Reader.  There are some alternatives I need to check out I can't remember them right now, but they are on my Twitter feed... somewhere lol.  I'm still very update that Google Reader is going to be gone in July.

SOURCE:... Twitterverse, somewhere there.

Media Server Headaches Ep.2?

Now the Media Server is giving me more and more NTFS problems.  I need to change the permission on it to allow owner full access which I don't need to change it, but I need to change the group and others permission and regardless of how I mount it or change permission or ownership or group ownership it will NOT allow me access.  So, I'm done

Mounted my new external 3Tb drive.  

Copied a whole folder from old 1Tb drive into new 3Tb drive as an initial test and I have ownership and full permission.  

It's so refreshing and out of my permission claustrophobia sorta say lol

I'll leave it copying the 400Gbs of data from the 1Tb drive to the 3Tb drive.  Tomorrow or the next day I will move just the media files I want the Media Server to have back onto the 1Tb drive which I will make sure that I have full permission even if I must blow away the partition and setup new partition on it.  This is once all my precious and sentimental data is safely stored away in the new 3Tb drive.

 

HomeLab Headaches Ep.5

Here we are back at it again

Figured something interesting out, if I mount my external drive using

mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt/ExtDrv

I can copy the data out of it that I need and paste it locally, but if I mount using

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdd1 /mnt/ExtDrv

Which is suppose to help with ntfs permission I can't copy data off of the drive, but I did change the permission on the /mnt/ExtDrv using chmod like this

chmod 755 -R /mnt/ExtDrv

I use ss64.com as a reference for chmod, they actually have a little table that you can click on what access you want and it will spit out the numeric and symbolic permission codes.
I use ss64.com to cross-reference for alot of my commands since I don't know too many.  I google what I need done and when -h or --help doesn't give me enough explanation to what the command does I go to ss64.com.  Great site and from year ago or so to now they've added a few more languages like powershell.

So I don't know if it was the chmod that actually gave me the permission to copy data from the external drive or if it was using mount without the -t switch along with ntfs-3g. 

While I was in the chmod mood, I changed the permission on my iso repository which is /VM_iso_Repo to owner would be root, group vboxusers will have full, read, write and execute access and others only read access.

Changing folder group ownership use chgrp

chgrp -R vboxusers /VM_iso_Repo

Changing folder permission access is as above

chmod -R 774 /VM_iso_Repo

Need to learn how to allow only a group access to a program.

Now I finally spun up the first of many Windows VMs on this machine.

Crypto.cat

Crypto.cat, new secure chat venue.  This brought to my attention by a co-worker.  Great idea and I love the video below.  I don't go on chat rooms now adays, but this is a great idea for those who still chat.  So if you or anyone you know still enjoy chatting on chat rooms go check out Crypto.cat

Cryptocat Adventure! from Nadim Kobeissi on Vimeo.

  

HomeLab Headaches Ep.4

I'm just going to start calling my "Home test lab set-up progress part X" posts HomeLab Headaches lol

In tonight's episode, Virtualbox won't start.  It wouldn't start last night, so I just went to bed.  I thought maybe because my User account isn't a sudoer?  So I ran virtualbox in terminal as root and it opened Virtualbox BUT! I got an error

WARNING: The vboxdrv kernel module is not loaded. Either there is no module available for the current kernel (2.6.32-279.el6.x86_64) or it failed to load. Please recompile the kernel module and install it by

           sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

         You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed.
Qt WARNING: QGtkStyle was unable to detect the current GTK+ theme.
Qt WARNING: Qt: Session management error: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported

I tried the "/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup" as it suggested but it failed and told me to look into the log

Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules                         [  OK  ]
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel modules                      [FAILED]
  (Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong)

I look in the "/var/log/vbox-install.log" and I get this

Makefile:181: *** Error: unable to find the sources of your current Linux kernel. Specify KERN_DIR=<directory> and run Make again.  Stop.

 So I rediscovered one of the sites I used alot when settings up a few things in linux, if-not-true-then-false.com.  It has an article which covers installing Virtualbox on CentOS\RHEL\Fedora(See Source at the end of the post for link).  I already have EPEL installed, but I followed the instructions step by step anyways.  I gave in a did the "yum update" which updated me to CentOS 6.4. Before I rebooted I did "yum install binutils gcc make patch libgomp glibc-headers glibc-devel kernel-headers kernel-devel dkms" and this is I think what I missed or the GUI didn't do on it's own when I was tired and decided to depend on the GUI to install Virtualbox properly.

Lesson learned: Don't be a bitch and depend on the GUI to do it right.  Do it on the CLI and even if you fail you won't feel as bad as depending on the GUI. lol
After that was done I tried the "/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup" and it failed

Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules                         [  OK  ]
Uninstalling old VirtualBox DKMS kernel modulesError! There are no instances of module: vboxhost
4.2.8 located in the DKMS tree.
                                                           [  OK  ]
Trying to register the VirtualBox kernel modules using DKMS[FAILED]
Starting VirtualBox kernel modules                         [FAILED]

So I rebooted and tried again "/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup" and this time it worked

Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules                         [  OK  ]
Uninstalling old VirtualBox DKMS kernel modulesError! There are no instances of module: vboxhost
4.2.8 located in the DKMS tree.
                                                           [  OK  ]
Trying to register the VirtualBox kernel modules using DKMS[  OK  ]
Starting VirtualBox kernel modules                         [  OK  ]

As instructed by if-not-true-then-false.com I added my User account to the "vboxusers" group, "usermod -a -G vboxusers User"

Double clicked on Virtual Box and it ran, no errors... so far

SOURCE:  Install Virtualbox with yum on Fedora, Centos, RHEL

Malicious Profiles - The Sleeping Giant of iOS Security

Malicious Profiles - The Sleeping Giant of iOS Security

  As I'll further discuss in this post, there is another way to create havoc on one's device, which may be comparable to sophisticated malware, without actually installing a program on the device.
 
Malware is prevalent. Mobile malware is on the rise. We are used to the perception that Android users are always under the threat of being attacked by malware and therefore should be highly suspicious about the software they install, while iOS users are immune and can enjoy the freedom of installing whatever they want without hesitation, due to Apple's "walled-garden" approach. Well... this isn't exactly the case.


To read the whole article click on link above...
Source: Skycure Security

Adobe tells Windows and Mac users to install critical security updates for F...

Adobe tells Windows and Mac users to install critical security updates for Flash and AIR

via Naked Security - Sophos on 3/13/13

Computer users should be getting used to security updates for Adobe Flash by now - after all, this is the fourth in as many weeks. Make sure your computers are protected as soon as possible.

To read the whole article click on link above...

Home test lab setup progress part 3

Free RAM doesn't always work... that doesn't sound right for some reason, meh!

The RAM I got from work didn't work on the Dell 2950(Server#1), but it worked on my older server my Dell 850.  I don't know what I want to do with my 850 yet. No, no one can't have it.  

Figured out how to configure\edit the /etc/fstab so it auto-mounts my other drives

First I tried it on my own no knowledge just throw stuff at it and see what comes of it just by looking at what was in the fstab already. for some reason it had entries like this :

tmpfs      /dev/shm     tmpfs      defaults     0 0

devpts    /dev/pts      devpts     defaults     0 0

sysfs       /sys            sysfs        defaults     0 0

proc       /proc          proc        defaults     0 0

so I added

RnDm       /dev/sdb     ext4     defaults     0 0

RnDm2     /dev/sdc      ext4     defaults    0 0

Rebooted and it didn't work, so I found this post, How to add a new partition to the fstab file

OH! There's the formula, [Device] [Mount Point] [File System Type] [Options] [Dump] [Pass]

so then I changed the fstab to 

/dev/sdb     /RnDm       auto     defaults     0 0

/dev/sdc     /RnDm2     auto     defaults     0 0

Rebooted and BAM! they auto-mounted.  Actually it didn't the first time because I had made a mistake on the mount point but after fixing that it worked.

Now after all this I once again face NTFS permission road blocks in my CentOS server.  fuck it, copying iso's from external drive using cli.

Correction on yesterdays post, drive /dev/sdb which is one of the pair of 146Gb drives is setup as RAID0, not RAID1. This is so I can benefit the read\write performance, where I'm going to keep my VMs. The single 146Gb drive /dev/sdc is going to keep my isos.

Home test lab setup progress part 2

The other problem I ran into when setting up my Dell 2950 was mounting the other HDD's.  I have two 73Gb and three 146Gb HDDs, the two 73Gbs are set as RAID0 and used for OS.  The other three 146Gb drives, two are setup RAID1 where I will keep all of my VMs and the other 146Gb is where I'm going to keep my iso's.

I'm trying my hardest to not depend on the GUI.  So into the CLI I dive.  I finally figured out how to delete the partition on the drives, but still could not mount. Then I found the mkfs command.  Since I'm using the whole drive on both the RAID1 146's and the single 146, its easy to just make the whole disk a file system.  Made it ext4, but now I have to figure out how to make it mount everytime I reboot.  I'm currently having to mount it manually, but I know I have to edit the /etc/fstab.  That's what I'm going to try and figure out next is the /etc/fstab file.

Also have been setting up a Media Server on a older laptop.  Using LinuxMint as OS and Plex Media Server.  Plex is pretty cool and easy to setup, but again I'm running into NTFS speed bumps.  That's what I get for using Windows when I used to actually download movies and crap.  My problem with the Media Server is not that I can't mount the ntfs drives like in the CentOS.  The problem is that I can't edit the permissions.  For some reason in order for Plex to find the files, the files permissions for "Other" have to be set to read or read and write.  I figured out this was the problem because when I copied the movie files locally and changed the permission I was able to find and play them on the Plex server.  More NTFS speed bumps, but I just bought a 3TB external drives over the weekend.  I'm going to migrate everything to it from my current 1TB backup drive and format the 1TB to Ext4 and just put my music, movies in it for the Plex server and be done.  I was suggested to setup SAMBA, but I don't want to head down that road... yet.  We shall see what I come up with.

SSCC 104 - Probably (be fair, definitely!) the best 15-minute podcast you'll...

SSCC 104 - Probably (be fair, definitely!) the best 15-minute podcast you'll hear today

via Naked Security - Sophos on 3/12/13

Have your joined thousands of others, and become a loyal listener to the "Chet Chat" yet? Here's the latest Naked Security podcast, Sophos Security Chet Chat 104, discussing a range of recent and newsworthy topics from the world of computer security.

Home test lab setup progress

Last week I started setting up my test lab for me to play around and learn things on my own.

So far I've setup one of my servers, its a Dell 2950,

600Gbs of HDDs between all 5 drives, cool
4Gbs of RAM, Sad! I know

Installed CentOS 6.3, I know 6.4 just came out but I'm going to let that settle first. Let everyone get their bugs out then I'll update to it. In the mean time I'll rock 6.3

Other than the OS I installed VirtualBox, but when came time to transfer my OS ios's I ran into a problem. My only linux experience is with Ubuntu so I'm used to NTFS support being installed by default. Nuh-uh, not in CentOS. So I had to fight with getting EPEL installed. Having never dealt with rpm instead of my ususal apt-get. After googling I found someones post which helped me add the EPEL but they had a bad/wrong mirror address so they won't get mentioned. To install EPEL I did

Rpm -Uvh http://mirror.seas.harvard.edu/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6.8.noarch.rpm

Follow the prompt/s allow it to install

Now for the ntfs support

Yum install ntfs-3g

External drive still gave me a little problem but I got it to work. I would post what the problem was but I closed the terminal window.

I got some RAM upgrade from work. Will bump my RAM from 4 Gbs to 16Gbs. Whoot whoot, ahem ok enough of that lol

Anatomy of a bug - the five minute insecurity window in the sudo command

Anatomy of a bug - the five minute insecurity window in the sudo command

via Naked Security - Sophos on 3/7/13

An authentication-related bug was patched recently in the Unix sudo command. Ironically, the bug was more likely to affect those users who were more security-conscious. Paul Ducklin explains...

Click on link above to read whole article.

White House agrees cellphone unlocking should be allowed, but jailbreakers left in limbo

via Naked Security on 3/6/13

The White House agrees with the 114,000+ US citizens who signed a petition to make cell phone unlocking legal. What they didn't address: the legality of jailbreaking and rooting.

Joe McCray, Building a Security Lab, Drunken Security News - Episode 322 - F...

  Joe McCray, Building a Security Lab, Drunken Security News - Episode 322 - February 28, 2013

via PaulDotCom Security Weekly on 3/3/13

Joe McCray is an Air Force Veteran and has been in IT security for over 10 years. His background includes both Network and Web Application penetration testing as well as incident response and forensics within the DoD and commercial sector.
Having a home lab is really key in our field. There always seems to be projects you want to work on that require a specific OS or software. You just need hardware at home, whether you are pen testing or doing security research. I grew tired of using laptops, and especially my own laptop. Having some low-cost servers will open up the possibilities.