/dev/chat

I think those rep graphs should show the month too.

Alex Mitan

Good morning!

If I messed something up during my attempt to make a dual-boot, is this the place to look for some help?

8:26 AM

@AlexMitan Provided one of your systems is Unix or Linux, yes. But please ask a question on the site, not in chat.

Alex Mitan

Ok, got it :)

Hmm, I just realised I haven't read Doonesbury in years. I wonder how they are depicting the Orange Menace.

I think the bomb with the burning fuse has been done already...

@AlexMitan Discussing questions in chat is fine, but the site is the place for the actual question.

Alex Mitan

Gotcha, thanks

2:05 PM

@Philippos @StephenKitt @SatōKatsura @dr01 while I share your general dislike of the script-kiddie "Waah, why can't I use Kali, I'm leet!" questions, let's not go overboard with duping them to Gilles's post. This one was actually a valid question if, as suggested by Karel's answer, the classic apt-get has now been removed in favor of the newfangled apt. That could surprise even experienced users.

Let's be careful not to close questions as duplicates of Gilles's unless they're clearly trivial or would never have happened to experienced users.

@terdon the accepted answer means that the OP somehow deleted the apt package, which is a pretty big “shooting oneself in the foot” action

The apt and apt-get commands are both part of the apt package and there is no plan to remove apt-get in favour of apt

However I do agree that closing that question as a dupe was too hasty

Ah

So the only way for apt-get to not be present is if the OP introduced Mr Bullet to Mr Foot?

Yes

OK, fair enough.

which probably isn’t a valid reason to dupe-close

2:09 PM

Nevertheless though, not a good dupe, as you say.

Close as unclear would make sense, for instance.

> And my sources.list is always empty although i add the repositories.

Um. what?

Yes, it would make sense (because the question doesn’t)

How did you add them? Where did you add them? What's in sources.list.d? etc

Exactly

I fear the hordes of script kiddies have rather ruined kali-linux for everyone else

OK, fair enough. Let's just try to resist the temptation of always closing Kali Qs as dupes of that one. And believe me, I understand the temptation very, very well.

4

Q: Why do I have "errors=remount-ro" option in my ext4 partition in Kali Linux?

Heh

We do get good Kali questions

4

In mount man page errors=remount-ro is an option for mounting fat but this option doesn't appear in ext4 options catalog. I know what this option means: In case of mistake remounting the partition like readonly but I don't know if it's a correct option or only a bug.

2:13 PM

Yeah, it does happen. Rarely

Sep 8 at 11:43, by terdon

Huh. A half way decent Kali question!

We could add a tag for those ;-)

halfway-decent-kali-question

2

/me confusing score with tags but never mind

Should be a badge!

@terdon ah yes that’s a neat idea

@Philippos @SatoKatsura @dr01 @StephenKitt explained that the question was a good deal worse than I thought, so my analysis about apt having replaced apt-get was
nonsense. Sorry! But anyway, let's still be careful and not close all Kali questions as dupes directly, closing as unclear would work better.

Philippos

2:34 PM

@terdon I don't like closing those questions as duplicate at all. One can link to it, if appropiate, but I don't like misusing this to close questions. In this case I voted to close because at that time there wasn't any information given you could use to help. This vote was unrelated to kali and not as duplicate. Just my comment was intended to warn a noob from using the wrong tool

@Philippos Oh, I stand corrected. You voted to close as too broad, sorry!

Grr. That one had 3 dupe votes, one non-reproducible and one too broad.

So I got confused.

3:07 PM

@terdon apt-get hasn't been removed from anywhere afaik. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding?

Oh, never mind. Stephen clarified. Please ignore.

Hmm, apparently one can still get badges for Meta answers.

Even if no actual recorded score (as far as I can tell).

@FaheemMitha yes, and you can get tag badges too

@StephenKitt The poster at no point mentions deleting apt. And surely that's quite a difficult thing to do accidentally and unaware. Even for a Kali user.

@FaheemMitha he installed the package and it started working again

so something got deleted somewhere

@StephenKitt Agreed. Still seems like a strange thing to happen.

and given how many users here ask questions where they ignored the warnings about removing essential packages etc., nothing surprises me any more

3:14 PM

@StephenKitt Don't you (still) have to type the magical incantation "Yes, do as I say"?

Or whatever the exact wording is.

root@orwell:/home/faheem# apt-get purge apt
[...]

you are about to do something potentially harmful.
To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!'
?]

I'm not sure how much plainer that could be. Maybe some people just enjoy playing Russian Roulette, though.

yes, but it seems quite a few users just type that without thinking much

@StephenKitt Three cheers for the international education system. Or something.

@FaheemMitha more like three cheers for people wanting to do something, following silly advice from forums, and only reading the minimum required to figure out how to get the computer to stop asking questions that get in the way

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

#1) Respect the privacy of others.
#2) Think before you type.
#3) With great power comes great responsibility.

3:34 PM

If one delete dpkg using apt, (1) does the process finish cleanly? (2) does the dpkg database still survive? (3) Would unpacking dpkg manually from a deb restore the system to its original uncorrupted form?

I'm not inclined to experiment, but I thought that someone here might know the answer.

@FaheemMitha there’s a question somewhere here from someone who ended up without dpkg

it’s really hard to recover from

when a system is being set up, the installer does its own thing to get dpkg installed

@StephenKitt So a drop-in replacement doesn't cut it?

yes, I think it would, but it’s not an obvious process ;-)

@StephenKitt Hmm. I suppose the question is what dpkg does when it is essentially uninstalling itself. I'm surprised it doesn't just refuse to do so.

What would be a valid use case for dpkg removing dpkg, anyway?

@FaheemMitha upgrading the package...

3:40 PM

@StephenKitt Oh, yes. forgot about that.

(not quite the same obviously)

@StephenKitt No, not quite the same. But I suppose dpkg can't tell the difference.

@FaheemMitha it does, but some parts of an upgrade are similar to removal; there might be some special-casing there for dpkg upgrades, I can’t remember off-hand

And I suppose even if could be made to do so, it's a sufficiently rare issue that the devs are unlikely to try to ensure against it.

@FaheemMitha if you want to shoot yourself in the foot, you’re always able to do so ;-)

3:43 PM

@StephenKitt That's practically Unix's motto.

Q: What is the C/C++ way to install a .deb file using libdpkg-dev?

@FaheemMitha exactly

I associate it more with C but it works for Unix too

speaking of which

0

I am trying to find a sample program/tutorial to write an installer (akin to the dpkg -i ), but am not finding a good resource. The scenarios that I am trying to handle via this program is: check if installed install update uninstall based on whether I find the package installed in the local...

debian software-installation package-management

@StephenKitt A curiously apposite question. Maybe the poster was eavesdropping here. :-)

cutrightjm

Any idea how to remove a satellite client's config that tells it to reach out to the satellite server? The satellite is currently offline and I'd like to register the server with RHN... but I can't get it to quit trying to register to the satellite. subscription-manager remove --all, unregister, clean didn't fix it

muru

4:01 PM

IIRC recent versions of busybox have a dpkg command

$ busybox dpkg --help
BusyBox v1.22.1 (Ubuntu 1:1.22.0-15ubuntu1) multi-call binary.

Usage: dpkg [-ilCPru] [-F OPT] PACKAGE

Install, remove and manage Debian packages

        -i,--install    Install the package
        -l,--list       List of installed packages
        --configure     Configure an unpackaged package
        -P,--purge      Purge all files of a package
        -r,--remove     Remove all but the configuration files for a package
        --unpack        Unpack a package, but don't configure it

So as long as you have a modern, functional busybox, you're still safe...

4:28 PM

Hi @muru. How are you doing? How's Japan?

@muru What is this in relation to?

@FaheemMitha your own question about removing dpkg

@StephenKitt Oh. I don't immediately see how busybox is relevant.

@FaheemMitha it provides another way of installing packages once dpkg is gone

(in theory, I haven’t tried it)

@StephenKitt Oh. But would it mesh with the existing installation? dpkg is also a database.

@FaheemMitha I would hope so

4:31 PM

@StephenKitt Um. Not sure how that would work. If muru has answers, I'm tempted to ask a question. On the site, I mean.

@FaheemMitha presumably the Busybox devs have re-implemented the dpkg database (or they use the library, I don’t know)

@StephenKitt So it will write to the existing dpkg database?

@FaheemMitha that’s what I’d expect

@StephenKitt Interesting. I'd like to see a more detailed outline of how that would work.

@FaheemMitha same as any other system where you have two implementations using the same files

4:40 PM

@StephenKitt No, I mean a walkthrough of what you would have to do if dpkgwent awol.

Step 1: Install busybox? If so, how?

Have you guys seen this? Letter by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, creator of Minix, to Intel

but can I do busybox dpkg -i kali-linux /dev/usb0 ?

@AaronHall I saw the tangential story: tech.slashdot.org/story/17/11/07/1041236/…

This caught my eye: "He continued, "Are you scared yet? If you're not scared yet, maybe I didn't explain it very well, because I sure am scared."
"

reminds me of "Reflections on Trusting Trust" -- win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/hh/thompson/trust.html or perhaps vxer.org/lib/pdf/Reflections%20on%20Trusting%20Trust.pdf

@AaronHall yes

"The moral is obvious. You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.)" -- Ken Thompson

@JeffSchaller Eww. No. Kali? Ugh.

4:44 PM

@JeffSchaller some people have come up with ways to measure trustworthiness of code you didn’t write

but you need to have full control over the running platform, which Intel ME doesn’t give you

Intel has installed Minix inside its processors? Or some processors? Am I understanding this correctly?

by “measure trustworthiness”, I essentially mean resolve the issues raised by Ken Thompson, or rather, ensure there is no backdoor like that

> You can't trust ~~code~~ hardware that you did not totally create yourself.

@FaheemMitha sorry, it was a bad joke

FTFY

4:45 PM

@FaheemMitha yes

@StephenKitt Wow

So forget LFS - now I have to learn Minix...

@JeffSchaller Freaking Kali gets enough attention around here. Let's try to pretend it doesn't exist for a bit.

Then if I have root on my processors, I've pwned my computer. :D

For people who know, is having an OS inside a processor something new?

4:48 PM

@FaheemMitha no

I'd never thought about it. But hey, they have OS's in fridges now, so why not?

@StephenKitt oh

Q: Ghost NTP server on Debian 8.6

14

So the university IT security team and I have been going around and around on this with no breaks... anyone have any thoughts on this: I recently set up a small file server for my lab running Debian 8.6 on a dedicated computer (Intel Avoton C2550 processor -- happy to provide more hardware info...

debian ip network-interface tcpdump ntp

@JeffSchaller The processor was running NTP? Wow.

> I can't emphasize this enough, it's a non-story that affects absolutely nobody except for platforms used by enterprise (think business laptops for asset tracking)

The average person does not have the Management engine turned on, it's built into the PCH chipset, not the CPU. You can actually rip out the firmware for the IME from the BIOS if you're paranoid as hell.

@JeffSchaller arguably that’s different because it’s not in the processor, but the level of trust and implications are similar

4:55 PM

Weird, the same answer is deleted by @terdon and also accepted with score 10. Why wasn't it just undeleted?

@FaheemMitha I think the initial revision was an attempt to capture the information from the comment-string; it was then deleted, then edited into the form that's in the non-deleted answer.

it was quite a comment string

@JeffSchaller I don't quite follow that, but ok.

@AaronHall lots of people have vPro laptops though

including many Linux kernel devs for one thing

Deleting it still seems redundant to me.

and on PCH ME platforms, the ME is involved in system boot-up (like a real BMC)

see hardenedlinux.github.io/firmware/2016/11/17/… for details

5:02 PM

@FaheemMitha hard to say, as we're not in terdon's or icarus' heads; that's just my interpretation of: unix.stackexchange.com/posts/331773/revisions

This Intel vPro thing sounds like something to avoid. Does AMD have similar stuff to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine?

@FaheemMitha yes, I can’t remember its name but there is something similar

ARM systems have TrustedZone which can do similar stuff too

@JeffSchaller Two mysteries. Why did terdon delete? And why didn't icarus just get the answer undeleted? I assume he just posted another answer instead of trying to undelete.

@StephenKitt Ugh. How horrible.

Tangentially related, and since there are actually people here for once...

At some point, someone (possibly in this room) posted a link about how Samsung smart TVs can be taken over so that you can watch people through the TV.

@FaheemMitha ah found it, it’s AMD PSP

Sounds horrifying, and a good reason to avoid smart TVs, Samsung or not.

5:06 PM

@FaheemMitha this? chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/26?m=40545687#40545687

@StephenKitt But this is special kind of processor, right? I mean, you wouldn't buy it by accident.

@JeffSchaller Yes, that's the one. Fast work.

And not that long ago, apparently.

top result for samsung in the search box :)

So, should smart TVs be avoided? I mean, one doesn't really need them.

@JeffSchaller Heh

Apparently this is related - and maybe that quote I cited was wrong? wired.com/2017/05/…

@FaheemMitha no, it’s part of the standard platform (it provides the trusted execution environment)

5:10 PM

@StephenKitt Oh. So are my processors running it?

@AaronHall your quote was presumably referring to the AMT vulnerability, which affects fewer platforms than general Intel ME issues, yes

@FaheemMitha depends on what processors you have

muru

@FaheemMitha sorry, got a bit busy with a userscript... How well busybox dpkg would mesh with the system dpkg is an interesting question, TBH I'd never had to use it. But then, I'd only use it reinstall the actual dpkg. After that, use dpkg to install apt, and then apt for everything else.