SysAdminGear

Shorewall is a high-level tool for configuring Netfilter.

How Shorewall works?
You describe your firewall/gateway requirements using entries in a set of configuration files, Shorewall reads those configuration files and with the help of the iptables utility, Shorewall configures Netfilter to match your requirements.

Shorewall can be used on a dedicated firewall system, a multi-function gateway/router/server or on a standalone GNU/Linux system. Shorewall does not use Netfilter's ipchains compatibility mode; as a consequence, Shorewall can take advantage of Netfilter's connection state tracking capabilities to create a stateful firewall.

shorewall.net

DOWNLOAD Shorewall

TuxFrw is a complete firewall automation tool for GNU/Linux, it consists of script files created to ease the way Linux IPTables firewall rules are configured.

With TuxFrw an user can configure his own Linux-based network firewall, simply passing some IP address numbers and other network utilization policies.

# Simple, high customizable firewall scripting framework;
# Open and close ports, deny forged traffic, stop flooding and stealth your services easily;
# Set up Network Address Translation for your LAN;
# Keep your DMZ away from attacks;

Download TuxFrw

Manage multiple firewalls using the same database of network objects with FirewallBuilder
With FirewallBuilder, system administrator will be able to manage multiple firewalls using the same database of network objects. A determinate change made to an object is immediately reflected in the policy of all firewalls using this object.

What is FirewallBuilder (from FirewallBuilder Website)
FirewallBuilder is a GUI firewall configuration and management tool that supports iptables (netfilter), ipfilter, pf, ipfw, Cisco PIX (FWSM, ASA) and Cisco routers extended access lists. Firewall Builder uses object-oriented approach, it helps administrator maintain a database of network objects and allows policy editing using simple drag-and-drop operations.




FirewallBuilder HOWTOS:
Installing OpenWrt on Linksys WRT54GSv1.1, by Chris Martin
How to use Firewall Builder to manage policy of the Linksys firewall running OpenWRT firmware
How to migrate objects from one data file to another
How to use built-in policy installer in Firewall Builder 2.0
Using fwb_install
How to make firewall load firewall policy after reboot – pf
How to make firewall load firewall policy after reboot – ipfw
How to make firewall load firewall policy after reboot – ipfilter
How to make firewall load firewall policy after reboot – iptables
How to restart firewall script when interface address changes
Documents, contributed by our users

Now is possible to Track the location of your lost or stolen laptop with a Open Source Application.

DOWNLOAD Adeona


Adeona presentation (from Adeona website)
Adeona is the first Open Source system for tracking the location of your lost or stolen laptop that does not rely on a proprietary, central service. This means that you can install Adeona on your laptop and go — there's no need to rely on a single third party. What's more, Adeona addresses a critical privacy goal different from existing commercial offerings. It is privacy-preserving. This means that no one besides the owner (or an agent of the owner's choosing) can use Adeona to track a laptop. Unlike other systems, users of Adeona can rest assured that no one can abuse the system in order to track where they use their laptop.

Adeona is designed to use the Open Source OpenDHT distributed storage service to store location updates sent by a small software client installed on an owner's laptop. The client continually monitors the current location of the laptop, gathering information (such as IP addresses and local network topology) that can be used to identify its current location. The client then uses strong cryptographic mechanisms to not only encrypt the location data, but also ensure that the ciphertexts stored within OpenDHT are anonymous and unlinkable. At the same time, it is easy for an owner to retrieve location information.

Why you should Track the location of your lost or stolen laptop?
With the growing ubiquity of, and user reliance on, mobile computing devices (laptops, PDAs, smart phones, etc.), loss or theft of a device is increasingly likely, disruptive, and costly. Internet-based tracking systems provide a method for mitigating this risk. These tracking systems send, over the Internet, updates regarding the current location of the device to a remotely administered repository. If the device is lost or stolen, but maintains Internet connectivity and unmodified software, the tracking system can keep tabs on the current whereabouts of the device. This data could prove invaluable when the appropriate authorities attempt to recover the device. Unfortunately, with current proprietary tracking systems users sacrifice location privacy. Indeed, even while the device is still in the rightful owner's possession, the tracking system is keeping tabs on the locations it (and its owner) visit. Even worse, with some commercial products, even outsiders (parties not affiliated with the tracking provider) can "piggy-back" on the tracking system's Internet traffic to uncover a mobile device user's private information and/or locations visited.

Adeona has three main properties:
* Private: Adeona uses state-of-the-art cryptographic mechanisms to ensure that the owner is the only party that can use the system to reveal the locations visited by a device.
* Reliable: Adeona uses a community-based remote storage facility, ensuring retrievability of recent location updates.
* Open source and free: Adeona's software is licensed under GPLv2. While your locations are secret, the tracking system's design is not.

SO: RHEL 5.x.
Type: Kernel
Importance: have security impact

How to Update:
# yum update
# reboot

You should check after upgrade if you have he new kernel version by typing:
# uname -mrs

Security fixes:
a) A missing capability check was found in the Linux kernel do_change_type routine. This could allow a local unprivileged user to gain privileged access or cause a denial of service. (CVE-2008-2931, Important)

b) A flaw was found in the Linux kernel Direct-IO implementation. This could allow a local unprivileged user to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2007-6716, Important)

c) Tobias Klein reported a missing check in the Linux kernel Open Sound System (OSS) implementation. This deficiency could lead to a possible information leak. (CVE-2008-3272, Moderate)

d) a deficiency was found in the Linux kernel virtual filesystem (VFS) implementation. This could allow a local unprivileged user to attempt file creation within deleted directories, possibly causing a denial of service. (CVE-2008-3275, Moderate)

e) A flaw was found in the Linux kernel tmpfs implementation. This could allow a local unprivileged user to read sensitive information from the kernel. (CVE-2007-6417, Moderate)

Bug fix
a) A kernel crash may have occurred on heavily-used Samba servers after 24 to 48 hours of use.

b) On certain systems, if multiple InfiniBand queue pairs simultaneously fell into an error state, an overrun may have occurred, stopping traffic.

c) With bridging, when forward delay was set to zero, setting an interface to the forwarding state was delayed by one or possibly two timers, depending on whether STP was enabled. This may have caused long delays in moving an interface to the forwarding state. This issue caused packet loss when migrating virtual machines, preventing them from being migrated without interrupting applications.

Oxford University and Oviedo done a study to know what are the countries with better Internet Connections in the World. For that, they did 8 million download / upload speed tests between different internet access point.

You can consult the results of this study in the picture below:



1st place: JAPAN
2nd place: SWEDEN
3rd place: NETHERLANDS

uTorrent is a strange program for some MAC users, but uTorrent is developing a new version for MAC.

Donwload is not available for download but it probably will be ready soon.

Check the uTorrent for MAC screen shot:

Dell Precision M6400

You use hard software on your laptop and are tired to get slow response?

Precision Line from Dell have the solution, the new Dell M6400

Dell M6400
Screen: 17' with LED Technology and 1920 by 1200 px resolution
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Core Extrem
RAM: 16 GB expansible to 1TB
Hard Drive: 2X 500GB Hard Disk - Raid 0 configures
Graphic Card: NVIDEA QUADRO FX 3700; (1GB memory)

This is a good choice (if you have money) to a sysadmin who needs great hardware specs on a latop.

Dell Precision M6400

RAM Memory Bufallo DDR3-2400

A Buffalo annunciated new modules of DDR3 memory RAM. Working at 2400 MHz (PC3-19200) with 1GB of capacity.

These modules, utilizes chips Epida tested at 2400MHz with stable results with 11-11-11-34 t and 2,1V power.

This modules can enter in the market soon.

You are running Windows XP, this is secured and is consuming low resources. Thats great, but you like Windows Vista graphics and icons.

That is no problem, you can install Bricopack Vista Ultimate 2, and after restart this application all your Windows XP wellcome screen, menu, user selection will look like Windows Vista.



The best of all is that it is free..

Software Name: Bricopack Vista Ultimate 2
License: Freeware
Download Bricopack Vista Ultimate 2

Next Windows, "Windows 7" will need some hardware capacities, if you are thinking to buy a laptop, you should consider a minimum of 2GB (RAM) or more and dual core or better cpu. 2GB is the recommended on Vista but Windows 7 will need more. Check the Windows 7 Official Presentation Video:

Is very useful schedule tasks to autorun when windows is turned off. For example, do a backup or a virus scan, or just a maintenance application.

You can do this using the next program:
LastChance
License: FreeWare
Download: LastChance



This program have various functionalities, on the "AutoShutdown" sub-menu, you can schedule the Windows SutDown and active the tasks / programs to run before shutting down.

On the sub-menu "Run on resource availability" you can add applications to run when when the computer is in standby or you are not using it for a while.

On the "Run On Shutdown" sub-menu you can add all the applications to run when the computer is going to shut down.

We have received a lot of good reviews for this anti spyware software, check the features:

* Quick, Complete and Custom Scanning of Hard Drives, Removable Drives, Memory, Registry, Individual Folders and More! Includes Trusting Items and Excluding Folders for complete customization of scanning!

* Detect and Remove Spyware, Adware, Malware, Trojans, Dialers, Worms, KeyLoggers, HiJackers, Parasites, Rootkits and many other types of threats.

* Light on System Resources and won't slow down your computer like many other anti-spyware products. Won't conflict with your existing anti-spyware or anti-virus solution!

* Repair broken Internet Connections, Desktops, Registry Editing and more with our unique Repair System!

* Real-Time Blocking of threats! Prevent potentially harmful software from installing or re-installing!*

* Multi-Dimensional Scanning detects existing threats as well as threats of the future by analyzing threat characteristics in addition to code patterns.

* First Chance Prevention examines over 50 critical points of your system each time your system starts up and shuts down to eliminate threats before they have a chance to infect and infiltrate your system.

* Process Interrogation Technology allows threats to be detected no matter where they are hiding on your system.

This script posted by jawnsy on debian-administration.org loads the settings from $IPSTATE (by default /etc/iptables.conf) when you Boot.

"You have to save the rules manually; this ensures that you make sure your rules are working properly (i.e. doesn't block you from logging in remotely, for example) before you decide to save them.

You do this running the command: "iptables-save > /etc/iptables.conf" (or whatever file you have chosen to use as your $IPSTATE file)"

Read The full article and download the script at:
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/615

This video shows you how to build and install or uninstall an application from source using NetBSD package management system: "pkgsrc"

What is pkgsrc?
pkgsrc (NetBSD Packages Collection) is a framework for building third-party software on NetBSD and other UNIX-like systems.
It contains over 7300 packages and is used to enable freely available software to be configured and built easily on supported platforms.

How to use pkgsrc video:

This video shows the easier way to install Ubuntu with out need to partition the hard drive.

Wubi allows you to boot into Ubuntu by saving a file to the boot folder in Windows Vista or Windows XP. So, you can always unistall Ubuntu easily without any complications to Windows Vista or Windows XP and note that this is not VM ware based.





Dual Boot Ubuntu Linux Using Wubi with out having to partition hard drive Video

How to Hide Files inside image files - This video shows how to Hide Files inside JPEG files. It can be used in Windows XP and Windows Vista.

This video shows you how to use PGP Desktop public key encryption technology. This program allows you to send securely encrypted emails and files.

Send securely encrypted emails and files with PGP Desktop Video:

HOWTO Secure Data with PGP

Securing your data with PGP

PGP - Pretty Good Privacy
GPG - GNU Privacy Guard

Common Encryption Methods are WPA WEP SSL, these videos will show you how to secure your data with PGP

Secure Your Data with PGP - Video Part 1


Secure Your Data with PGP - Video Part 2

This video tutorial will show how to use a bash script to install your own Counter Strike Server in Ubuntu Linux.

Setup CSS server in Ubuntu Linux Video: