Jun. 14, 2008
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.
Jun. 13, 2008
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
Jun. 5, 2008
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
Jun. 5, 2008
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 | 5 Comments
Jun. 2, 2008
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
May. 28, 2008
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
May. 20, 2008
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
May. 9, 2008
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.
Posted by Patrik in Ubuntu | No Comments
May. 2, 2008
Have you ever found yourself calling your collegue to show them your mad skills during an application test. Just to seconds later realize that you're a Teletubby as session information got mixed up between browsers and you actually achieved nothing?
Posted by Patrik in Testing | No Comments
May. 1, 2008
In addition to fixing some walls in our kitchen I have had the chance to work on some old tools today. First I fixed MSSQLScan so that it now handles running out of sockets and timeouts much better. Then I also had the chance to do the last touch-up on a tool (DBPwAudit) I had previously worked on that can be used to scan databases for weak passwords. DBPwAudit has an architecture that allows it to scan new databases by simply dropping a JDBC driver in the right directory and creating som simple rules in a rules.conf file. Be sure to check it out at http://www.cqure.net