patrik.cqure.net

I have been meaning to look into using Virtualbox as an alternative for VMware Workstation that I have been using for quite sometime. Now, that I have been running them in parallel for almost a month I see some  benefits and some disadvantages with both. The definition of personal use for Virtualbox is undeniably a big benefit. According to the licensing FAQ this is the definition of personal use:

"Personal use is when you install the product on one or more PCs yourself and you make use of it (or even your friend, sister and grandmother). It doesn't matter whether you just use it for fun or run your multi-million euro business with it. Also, if you install it on your work PC at some large company, this is still personal use. However, if you are an administrator and want to deploy it to the 500 desktops in your company, this would not qualify as personal use. Well, you could ask each of your 500 employees to install VirtualBox but don't you think we deserve some money in this case? We'd even assist you with any issue you might have."

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Posted by Patrik in Virtualization | No Comments

Updating to version 0.5.0 brings even greate power and functionality to Do. At the time of the writing this version is not available in Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy. In order to install it follow the installation guide here.

I realized that I was missing a dependency (libevolution3.0-cil) needed to get the Evolution plugin running. Simply installing it after Do was in place resolved my troubles:

sudo aptitude install libevolution3.0-cil

Posted by Patrik in Ubuntu | No Comments

I have been running Gnome Do for quite some time now and fully agree with it being "A powerful, speedy, and sexy remote control for your GNOME Desktop". I am now wondering how I actually coped without it in the past.

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Posted by Patrik in Ubuntu | No Comments

A fix for that nasty OpenVPN bug in Hardy was released this evening. No need to type the password for your keys 4 times in a row anymore. The Network manager is also back in business and works just great. I can finally remove my kludge whitelisting fix

Posted by Patrik in Ubuntu | No Comments

I have created a small workaround for the VERY annoying results of the introduction of openssl-vulnkey. Having to enter my ssl key passwords four times before establishing a OpenVPN connection and not being able to use the nm-applet at all wasn't great.

The patch adds a key to a whitelist ones it has verified it as safe and does not do any further blacklist tests for any keys located in the whiltelist. The patch is not flawless and should only be seen as a temporary workaround until a permanent solution from the vendor becomes available. It has several shortcomings, such as only being able to add keys to the whitelist if run as root.

The patch is available at the launchpad site here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/230197/

Posted by Patrik in Ubuntu | No Comments

We're getting closer, however we're not there yet. The VMWare module source shipped with VMware server 1.0.6 still fails to compile on my Ubuntu Hardy systems. I received the following errors when running vmware-config.pl

/tmp/vmxnet-only/vmxnet.c: In function ‘vmxnet_open’:
/tmp/vmxnet-only/vmxnet.c:675: error: ‘SA_SHIRQ’ undeclared (first use in this function)
/tmp/vmxnet-only/vmxnet.c:675: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
/tmp/vmxnet-only/vmxnet.c:675: error: for each function it appears in.)
/tmp/vmxnet-only/vmxnet.c: In function ‘vmxnet_netpoll’:
/tmp/vmxnet-only/vmxnet.c:1045: error: too many arguments to function ‘vmxnet_interrupt’

I have made appropriate patches (for the network module only) and uploaded a patch file here

In order to apply the patch do the following and then re-run vmware-config.pl

cd /tmp
wget http://www.cqure.net/files/VMwareTools-1.0.6-91891.patch
tar xvf /usr/lib/vmware-tools/modules/source/vmxnet.tar
patch -p0 < VMwareTools-1.0.6-91891.patch
tar cvf vmxnet.tar vmxnet-only
sudo cp vmxnet.tar /usr/lib/vmware-tools/modules/source/vmxnet.ta

/Patrik

Posted by Patrik in Virtualization | No Comments

VMware workstation 6.04 was released the other day. No need to patch any of the modules for recent kernels (2.6.24) anymore.

Posted by Patrik in Virtualization | No Comments

So, we had yet another OWASP - meeting here in Stockholm, Sweden yesterday. I must say I was pleased to see that so many people took the time to attend and listen to us three speakers.

I held yet another speech on SQL injection and yet again overestimated my ability to deliver slides at a pace of 0.78 minutes per slide. Skipping through a few of them gave me just the little time I needed to finish up with a short demo

After a few requests for the presentation I decided to put it online together with the small DNS server and samle code I used to demonstrate the DNS-channeling parts.

The DNS server has a brief help describing each parameter. Basically in order to try it out, it needs to be run on either:

• An authorative DNS in the zone against which we are tunneling our queries. Please note that in the event of a zone having multiple DNS servers assigned to it, all queries will NOT end up at the same resolver.
• On the host assigned as the DNS server on the victim DB server

When starting the dns_server.pl script a zone for which it answer queries needs to be specified. This is done with the "-q" option. In my cheat sheet I am using the zone inj.cqure.net and therefore need to start the DNS server like this:  ./dns_server.pl -q inj.cqure.net

A zip-file containing the PDF presentation, a subset of the cheat sheet I used and my small DNS server is available for download from here.

Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions.

Posted by Patrik in Security | No Comments

Last weeks OpenSSL issues in Debian based distributions didn't go unnoticed for most of us. The introduction of openssl-vulnkey screwed up the Network Manager based OpenVPN GUI as it does no longer properly supply the underlying daemon with the passkey correctly.

Running OpenVPN from the command line now asks for the password three times as seen below:

Tue May 20 19:37:12 2008 /usr/sbin/openssl-vulnkey -q /home/user/openvpn/key.pem
Enter pass phrase for /home/user/openvpn/key.pem:
Enter pass phrase for /home/user/openvpn/key.pem:
Enter Private Key Password:

There is a incorrect but working workaround suggested at Ubuntu launchpad:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/230197/

It suggests replacing openssl-vulnkey that is intended for checking x509 certificates with openvpn-vulnkey used for checking OpenVPN shared static keys. Replacing openssl-vulnkey with /bin/true works just as good as the suggested workaround at launchpad but obviously removes the intended check for blacklisted keys as well.

So check your keys using openssl-vulnkey, replace any keys needing replacing, make a backup of openssl-vulnkey and replace it with /bin/true TEMPORARLY. If your interested in monitoring the activity of the bug, become a subscriber at the link above. If not wait for the security update and make sure to apply it ones it's released.

Posted by Patrik in Ubuntu | No Comments

I've been looking at the sweet small Asus Eee PC's for quite some time now. I have had a hard time deciding whether to wait for the 900-series or buy the ones that are available in stores now. Giving it some thought I decided to wait for the new ones AND buy one now What can I say it's a small pink beauty and so far I love it.

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Posted by Patrik in Ubuntu | No Comments