Ask Ubuntu General Room

jokerdino

16:00

@NlightNFotis oh i can help you with that.

I am on Ubuntu dev advisory team. :)

NlightNFotis

But I think that the core team is only comprised by some veterans and red hat workers.

@jokerdino really?

@jokerdino aha

aking1012

@NlightNFotis i think an easier start would be suggesting a patch to the original package. then once your name is in the "patch submitted by" thing it would look silly to bounce one of your commits downstream. just saying

jokerdino

Ubuntu. corrected

NlightNFotis

I am not suggesting that I am ready to commit to os development

jokerdino

ok ciao

NlightNFotis

16:01

I do not have the necessary knowledge. YET. (TM)

aking1012

there are loads of patches that have been submitted, but need tweaking to get in to the distro...

Anwar

@jokerdino good night

NlightNFotis

@jokerdino bye pal

@Anwar seems like its just you and me.

and @aking1012

aking1012

there are lurkers...lurking

Anwar

am trying to remember the meaning of 1012

NlightNFotis

16:04

?

aking1012

date of birth

NlightNFotis

dob?

aha

Anwar

@aking1012 I forgot to re-hello you after the long leave period. Hello. how's the days going?

aking1012

it goes

Anwar

oh. yes. once explained.

NlightNFotis

16:06

what would you like to discuss with me?

Anwar

you say

NlightNFotis

do you like hacking?

not hacking as in anonymous

hacking as in professional pen testing

Anwar

pen means?

NlightNFotis

penetration

Anwar

as ?

aking1012

16:08

@NlightNFotis would be fun i think

NlightNFotis

it is a blast

aking1012

Penetration test

A penetration test, occasionally pentest, is a method of evaluating the security of a computer system or network by simulating an attack from malicious outsiders (who do not have an authorized means of accessing the organization's systems) and malicious insiders (who have some level of authorized access). The process involves an active analysis of the system for any potential vulnerabilities that could result from poor or improper system configuration, both known and unknown hardware or software flaws, or operational weaknesses in process or technical countermeasures. This analysis is ca...

NlightNFotis

I want to research operating system security.

I came up with a fantastic idea for an exploit I would like to test on my vms.

Anwar

it is interesting

NlightNFotis

Wanna hear it?

aking1012

16:09

whatever you like. i'm afk for a couple minutes (outside to smoke)

NlightNFotis

oj

here it goes:

cron jobs run as uid root right?

aking1012

@aking1012 pings himself to find where he stopped reading

Anwar

yes, afaik

NlightNFotis

if they run as uid root, you might actually be able to modify the code of a script to be run

with malicious code

and it's get executed with root privileges

boom

instant privilege escalation

and that is dangerous.

Gilles

@NlightNFotis if they're root's cron jobs. Every user has their own crontab

Anwar

16:12

yes. if you can get into the system

Gilles

@NlightNFotis of course. A user must not run code controlled by some other user they don't trust

e.g. as root, don't run code that can be modified by other users

NlightNFotis

@Gilles do you mean that if I set a chrontab, it gets executed with my privileges?

Gilles

via cron or otherwise

@NlightNFotis of course. Your crontab, your privileges

NlightNFotis

oh man

I did not know that.

then my theory fails

have to come up with another one

@Gilles may I ask you something about linux (and unix) security in general?

Gilles

@NlightNFotis you can always ask. I don't promise to answer

NlightNFotis

16:17

@Gilles ok. Does the unix security framework (permissions, etc) mean that the only way to find your way into a system would be hard exploiting a buffer overflow vulnerability or another vulnerability in kernel or (somehow easier) on a user space program?

Gilles

@NlightNFotis that's the principle

of course, the bug could be anything, not just a buffer overflow

aking1012

people running a webserver as chmod 777 with an upload folder for example...

Gilles

By definition, if you have a security system, and there's a way to bypass it, it's a vulnerability

NlightNFotis

@Gilles thanx man

@aking1012 welcome back bro.

aking1012

yep. read and caught up. saw Gilles had you covered.

Polynomial

16:21

@NlightNFotis That's actually the same trick as the old at vulnerability in WinXP.

but Ubuntu does the same thing that Vista / Win7 does - store a security context for the user alongside the task.

NlightNFotis

@Polynomial I have seen the at vulnerability in person. It was quite fun, and frankly, a lot of machines are still using xp, making it possible to get easily exploited.

Polynomial

well it's easy to exploit on XP. just use at as it's meant to be used :P

NlightNFotis

@Polynomial @aking1012 I recently read up somewhere that until Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron, all passwords on the system were stored in MD5.

Polynomial

but on Win7 you get even greater security than on Ubuntu (slightly surprisingly), because the task scheduler for user tasks actually loads into a separate lower-privilege service instance.

NlightNFotis

though the latest from 10+ as far as I know secure passwords with sha512.

Polynomial

16:24

so if you create a task as a normal user (limited or administrator) it gets loaded into a service that runs as Administrator.

whereas tasks generated by Windows itself, or privileged services like TrustedInstaller, get executed by a SYSTEM service.

NlightNFotis

@Polynomial runs as administrator? or as limited?

@Polynomial aha I see.

Polynomial

It runs under the user credentials.

but the daemon (service) runs as Administrator.

NlightNFotis

@Polynomial I see.

Polynomial

which isn't the same as SYSTEM.

whereas the old XP vulnerability escalated privileges to SYSTEM.

which has access to all sorts of nasties, like the SAM file and protected LSA storage.

NlightNFotis

@Polynomial Oh yeah, I think I remember!

Gilles

16:26

@Polynomial that's the problem with Windows's security model: it's more powerful than Unix's... hence more difficult to use correctly

Polynomial

@Gilles there's an ACL on every damn object in Windows.

which is such a pain when dealing with kernel-mode code.

NlightNFotis

@Gilles I guess that like everything else, the KISS principle applies on security models too.

Polynomial

because you have to explicitly create ACLs and all sorts of other things like SIDs.

@NlightNFotis Actually, selinux tries to emulate Windows' ACL-style stuff.

NlightNFotis

@Polynomial forgive my noobiness, but what is the ACL you are talking about?

Polynomial

Access Control List

NlightNFotis

16:28

@Polynomial I have heard about SELinux, but never used it.

Polynomial

so every object can have a set of privileges applied for every user (or user group)

NlightNFotis

@Polynomial planning to, though.

aking1012

@Gilles i'll disagree on that one. it's no "more powerful" it just seems so. you can put ACLs on anything yes, but the same is true on all unix-like OS-es since everything is a file and all files have user/group/other permissions

NlightNFotis

@Polynomial excuse me, isn't that what's happening with Unix and Linux by default?

Polynomial

@NlightNFotis Not really. On Linux you get read, write, execute, special. On Windows you can have arbitrary privileges.

NlightNFotis

16:29

@Polynomial or am I getting it wrong?

Gilles

@aking1012 no, Windows has more than that

Polynomial

so you get read/write/execute, but also things like delete, lock, etc.

and there are more specific ones for objects like mutexes.

Gilles

Most unices nowadays do have ACLs on files (only rwx)

but not on some other things

Polynomial

if you mix SELinux with grsec (PaX + RBAC) you get roughly the same model as Windows, except it's horribly complicated to set up because it's a patch (there's no defaults!)

Gilles

@aking1012 and a more fundamental difference is that Windows uses inheritance for privileges, whereas unix uses elevation

Polynomial

16:31

but in Windows you get one real benefit: you can make a file with no owner.

which means that there's no user that always has access to a file.

Gilles

on paper, the inheritance model is more secure, because elevation is tricky to get right in practice

elevation = setuid/setgid by the way

Polynomial

on Linux, root has access to everything. on Windows, even SYSTEM can be denied access to a file.

4

aking1012

@Gilles that's fair. as is the inheritance thing theory, but inheritance can also be even trickier because of some random inherited permission that you didn't explicitly override.

Gilles

e.g. setuid programs must discard many environment variables, must take care not to trust various things about their environment (e.g. current directory), ...

however, once someone has written a correct su/sudo, it mostly works

NlightNFotis

@Polynomial I liked what you said so much that I had to print screen it to not forget it, lol. =)

Polynomial

16:33

@aking1012 Thankfully Windows explorer has had a lot of work put into it to properly show the effective permissions.

@NlightNFotis hehe

Gilles

The inheritance model means that all privilege elevation go through remote calls, to a service that has all (or many) privileges, and tends to lack information about the request

NlightNFotis

guys

Gilles

It's an easy mistake to make, when writing a service, to grant more requests than you should

aking1012

@Gilles a lot of stuff on the linux side is moving in that direction through exposing everything through dbus

Gilles

@aking1012 yes. Dbus is fundamentally intended for single-user desktop systems, it's hard to fit on a multiuser system

aking1012

16:36

that's fair, but that's why you have system dbus and per-user dbus

Gilles

@aking1012 as long as you stick to that, there's no impact on security

the problem comes when e.g. you want the user logged into the console to be able to control the loudspeaker volume, or mount USB drives

Anwar

@NlightNFotis You can use bookmark tool to permanently same the conversation. i think it should be

aking1012

@Gilles a little webapp thing i worked on had a REST interface for calling dbus, but it was whitelist dbus interface matching. that is also true.

NlightNFotis

guys I think I will leave this chat, and I will go back to studying

thanks all for the wonderfull information

cya again

Anwar

@NlightNFotis I agree :)

bye

NlightNFotis

16:40

@Anwar with what do you agree?

Anwar

studying part

NlightNFotis

aha

cya all

thank you

bye

Amith KK

17:00

BBT

Anwar

bye @AmithKK

Lord of Time

17:15

hello, everyone

how goes the day?

Anwar

@LordofTime I am back after some days

Lord of Time

welcome back

Anwar

1 hour ago, by aking1012

it goes

said to me by a similar question by aking. :)

Lord of Time

you're just in time to enlist in the Time Warriors. The War of Time Against the Evil Questions of Stupidity, Offtopicness, and Everything Fail is approaching, and the warriors of time are preparing :P

we must close all evil questions :P

Anwar

yeah of course. because, we can't prevent devil doing evil

Lord of Time

17:28

i'm still laughing that this got accepted...

1

A: Problem installing Bumblebee on Ubuntu 10.10

10.10 is End of Life. You should upgrade to 11.10 or newer to get continued support, and updated drivers. (11.04 is almost EOL, it will be end of life when 12.10 is released in October of 2012.) Also, the PPA that LnxSlck referenced (in his now-deleted answer to this question) does not publish ...

the almighty 'THIS IS END OF LIFE!" response

Anwar

grats ! that is nice

Lord of Time

it should become a canned response for EOL releases xD

do we have any canned answer responses listed anywhere?

Anwar

may be not. not sure

Jorge can tell us exactly, i think

Lord of Time

YO @JorgeCastro

you are SUMMONED!

Eliah Kagan

In general, if a canned answer would make sense, the question should probably be closed. But EoL questions should not be closed; community consensus is still that they are on-topic.

Lord of Time

17:43

@EliahKagan indeed, however note that when its about updating software, and its EOL, you can't get updates

short of upgrading

which makes (in THOSE cases) a canned response about EOL useful

2

A: Ubuntu 10.10 cannot get nVidia driver 260.19.12?

10.10 is End of Life. You should upgrade to 11.10 or newer to get continued support. (11.04 is almost EOL, it will be end of life when 12.10 is released in October of 2012.) Also, that PPA does not publish Maverick packages. Also, PPAs cannot publish (new) Maverick or EOL-release packages (EOL...

and

2

A: Problem installing Bumblebee on Ubuntu 10.10

10.10 is End of Life. You should upgrade to 11.10 or newer to get continued support, and updated drivers. (11.04 is almost EOL, it will be end of life when 12.10 is released in October of 2012.) Also, the PPA that LnxSlck referenced (in his now-deleted answer to this question) does not publish ...

both questions are asking about software updates, either from a PPA or otherwise

in both those cases, an EOL response is valid

Eliah Kagan

Yes, and I think your answer there is quite good. But couldn't we have a canned comment, and close-vote the questions to a canonical "Why can I no longer update my Ubuntu ReallyDarnOld.04 system?" (I'm not suggesting that this should actually be the title.)

Lord of Time

I'm tempted to create said canonical question/answer, but we should see if one already exists

unfortunately, the internet here is... spotty...

due to thunderstorms causing powerflickers

which sometimes restart the wifi

Eliah Kagan

18:05

1 more close vote needed to dupe this:

0

Q: the following package have unmet depnedencies?

Can someone please help me with these errors: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies: libreoffice-base-core : Depends: ure but it i...

Is there a canonical (or otherwise good) "how do I make a bootable USB flash drive from an Ubuntu iso?" question? If so, this question (which is really just asking how to do that) should be closed as a duplicate of it:

0

Q: how to recover grub after installing windows next to ubuntu in netbook(no optical drive)

I have ubuntu12.04 and win7 on my netbook. now i'm going to install winXP instead of 7 but I have no optical drive to use ubuntu liveCD and I know if I do this, my grub will go.. the only way is by using my flash but how??..

grub2 flash

njallam

18:24

@aking1012 It's not homework, it's a personal project I'm working on.

The Interrupter

How to completely remove firefox from 12.04 so it wont update http://askubuntu.com/q/183319?atw=1 #updates

Tweeted by AskUbuntu on September 2, 2012 at 6:00 PM

aking1012

@njallam ok. either way, did you think that code was readable?

njallam

@aking1012 It's good, thanks

I really need to be more OO with python

You haven't wired load() up to anything?

aking1012

nope. it was just an example

njallam

18:39

And shouldn't you register deserialise tagset when making the buffer, and then get the serialised tagset?

Anyway, I should pretty much rewrite the entire thing.

aking1012

registering serialise/deserialise could happen in init. it was more proof that subclassing and adding methods was the right way to do it than a finished product

njallam

ookay...

I really suck at Python.

Why does it need the buffer twice here:

a_buffer.serialize(a_buffer,...

aking1012

the api requires certain parameters. just do it that way. if you subclassed textbuffer instead it would be passing that as self i think

njallam

OK

George Edison

I just realized you can generate PDFs in Python with... Cairo.

njallam

18:45

I think when I rewrite it, I will generate the window without Glade. Much less messy.

Good idea?

aking1012

@njallam even with glade, you can just reparent the widget

i was just banging it out quickly

@GeorgeEdison cairo is useful for sure

njallam

If I do it in code, I have more control. Which is good :)

George Edison

Basically I'm looking for something nice that converts HTML into a PDF.

I just need to figure out how to get ReportLab installed.

aking1012

they don't have something already to "screenshot" a webpage? you could load that as a texture/pixbuf in cairo and save it as a pdf

jrg

Shutter did/does that iirc.

aking1012

18:53

i thought shutter was in perl

George Edison

Time to create a 32-bit chroot.

jrg

Oh, sorry. I missed the context.

George Edison

Are there up-to-date instructions anywhere on creating such a chroot?

jrg

As far as I know, nope.

George Edison

:(

I guess I'll just follow this: help.ubuntu.com/community/DebootstrapChroot

aking1012

18:57

@GeorgeEdison being able to run an entire instance headless in a vm has made me chroot lazy

George Edison

Oh that's right... I forgot I had an i386 VM.

jrg

LXC containers!

aking1012

@jrg someone has been reading about running launchpad instances locally

jrg

Who, me?

aking1012

that's the last place i saw LXC container mentioned

dev.launchpad.net/Running/LXC

jrg

19:01

Oh, no, I didn't read that. I just like the idea.

aking1012

@jrg okay...so I was reading about running local launchpad so maybe i could make production grade VMs running mini-build-farms for aspiring ubuntu devs and thought maybe great minds were thinking alike

jrg

@aking1012 OHHHH. now that looks good.

Jorge Castro

@LordofTime yo, looking for me?

Mitch

Hello all

Anwar

19:27

Self dupe askubuntu.com/q/183340/61218

Mitch

I'm fresh out of close votes. Can some one close this

0

Q: Create windows XP's live USB using ubuntu

My hard disk crashed.. I can run Ubuntu using a pendrive by making a live USB of Ubuntu, which I made using Windows 7. In the similar way, I want to run Windows XP too using another pen drive (without hard disk) and I want to make it from Ubuntu (12.04). The resources I have are Ubuntu's live USB...

live-usb

As a dupe for this?

7

Q: How to create a live usb for Windows in Ubuntu

I have the need to create a Live USB to install Windows but from Ubuntu, I've tried to emulate the tools that make the same function from windows but I just do not work. I would be very helpful to know how. Thanks

windows usb

Takkat

@Mitch: they want to install Windows on an USB because the drive is broken. This can't be done from Ubuntu really. Its not a dupe, the other Q asks for an installation USB.

Hi btw

Mitch

Oh, My bad. Sorry..

Takkat

Its not really on topic anyway...

Mitch

BBL

aking1012

19:37

@Mitch I'll vote as OT or Too localised when my votes reset

see my comment

Takkat

@aking1012 great comment but no vote so far... ;)

aking1012

my votes don't reset for several hours 4 or so

Takkat

See - that's why I dont vote that often ;P

aking1012

i try to keep my close review queue at 0

Takkat

No - I just usuallly have not so much time to go through all those questions. My bad I know.

aking1012

19:40

That's fair, the new review system takes it down to a couple of minutes for me though.

Takkat

Yeah that helps a lot - still we need to read and understand the Q to be able to vote.

Some questions are hard to get.

aking1012

I completely understand. My first check is "3-4 votes agreeing on a reason" then i scan to see if it basically matches. 1 vote i have to read much more thoroughly. 2 votes i have to read and understand more than 1 vote but less than 3-4

Takkat

good approach.

Ubuntu Questions on U&L

20:00

0

Q: Home folder structure in Ubuntu 12.04.1?

Long story short, i just accidentally deleted my entire home folder. Thankfully it seems like the hidden files are still there. I'm not sure, but aren't all of the folders within the home folder (Desktop, Downloads and whatever else is in there) empty by default? If that is the case, could some ...

ubuntu directory-structure home

Mitch

@aking1012 Thanks.. I saw that. I'll do the same in a little over 3 hours..

This Q:

0

Q: Installing Ubuntu to Oracle VM Virtual box

I have already downloaded and burned a CD of Ubuntu 12.04.1. I want to install it to Oracle VM Virtual Box. How do I do that?

installation

As a Dup to this:

0

A: How to install Ubuntu on VirtualBox?

Go to the home page on Ubuntu's website and then go to the download section, and get Ubuntu if you haven`t done so already. You can burn the image to a CD or use it as is ISO image. Install VirtualBox if not installed already. Once you have done the previous steps Go To For complete tutorial o...

jrg

Vote!

2

Mitch

I'm fresh out..

aking1012

@jrg We both are...and it seems we have about the same reset time too

jrg

@aking1012 oh well. :-)

Mitch

20:21

@jrg

:-)

I can't seem to keep my eyes open, so Good night all

aking1012

nite...and that's cute

i think that's the first awwz star i've ever given

Roland Taylor

21:01

Hi folkseses

George Edison

Hi.

Roland Taylor

@GeorgeEdison hey!

George Edison

2

The Interrupter

Source or dot operator overriding execute permission? http://askubuntu.com/q/183377?atw=1 #commandline

Tweeted by AskUbuntu on September 2, 2012 at 9:00 PM

George Edison

21:16

2

aking1012

I thought it bore noting a quote I just had on a cryptogram:
"There are people who live their whole lives on the default settings, never realizing you can customize."
— Robert Brault
seems relevant in AU chat...

2

@GeorgeEdison 15th of cisco...that's hilarious

jrg

@aking1012 got that right. I tend to use defaults if and only if they work for me. Most of the time they don't, hence my problems.

aking1012

21:31

does MaaS work without hardware virt? anybody know off-hand?

Roland Taylor

@GeorgeEdison LOL

Ask Ubuntu Meta

21:51

0

Q: How to know if an answer is still relevant?

Looking for example at questions Unity doesn't load, no Launcher, no Dash appears and Is it possible to have a different background for each workspace?, both questions include in their answers the use of ccsm (compizconfig-settings-manager). But then there is this question What are some of th...

discussion asking-questions answered-questions

aking1012

it seems a lp vm/MaaS instance would be desired by more than a few:

3

Q: Does anyone have experience with a private Launchpad instance?

Has somebody already installed and run launchpad on its own server? I'd like advice as I wasn't able to find any on the web. Besides, the official team gives scary remarks on having its own launchpad. They also say that a lot of administration scripts aren't included in the distributed sources an...

version-control project-management versioning launchpad

Lord of Time

22:08

@JorgeCastro yes i was looking for you, to see if you knew of any questions which we can use as a canonical "I am using $software in $EOLRelease. How do I update or fix it?"

bascially equating to the almighty "THIS RELEASE IS EOL" answer I gave

like

3

A: Problem installing Bumblebee on Ubuntu 10.10

10.10 is End of Life. You should upgrade to 11.10 or newer to get continued support, and updated drivers. (11.04 is almost EOL, it will be end of life when 12.10 is released in October of 2012.) Also, the PPA that LnxSlck referenced (in his now-deleted answer to this question) does not publish ...

or

2

A: Ubuntu 10.10 cannot get nVidia driver 260.19.12?

10.10 is End of Life. You should upgrade to 11.10 or newer to get continued support. (11.04 is almost EOL, it will be end of life when 12.10 is released in October of 2012.) Also, that PPA does not publish Maverick packages. Also, PPAs cannot publish (new) Maverick or EOL-release packages (EOL...

(basically, is there a canonical answer for an EOL release question and an EOL release answer relating to updates, because updates are not possible anymore)

George Edison

22:32

^---- Coming soon to a website near you.

ObsessiveFOSS

23:04

Is it enough just to use Jockey to install flgrx in order to move from an nvidia card to an ATI card, other factors being unchanged?

Anyone know?

aking1012

i'ld remove the binary drivers for the old card first, shutdown, change cards, boot, enable new binary drivers, reboot, done

anytime i say remove or install i mean with jockey

ObsessiveFOSS

@aking1012 I no longer have the old card. It failed recently.

I'm on a low-res failsafe...

aking1012

i'ld uninstall it with jockey-text from recovery console. i have a question about that somewhere

1

A: Updated Nvidia graphics driver, now won't make it past the boot screen

On 12.04 Latest - tested, steps should basically apply for previous. If it doesn't work, add the output from fdisk -l and mount from recovery console in your question and I'll edit my answer to address it. Boot to recovery console Select root shell mount Should give you some output, you...

Gilles

10

A: How do I run 32-bit programs on a 64-bit Ubuntu?

Shipped 32-bit libraries Debian and Ubuntu ship with a number of 32-bit libraries on amd64. Install the ia32-libs package to have a basic set of 32-bit libraries, and possibly other packages that depend on this one. Your 32-bit executables should simply run if you have all the required librarie...

George Edison

Thanks.

Gilles

23:17

@GeorgeEdison weird that I don't seem to have found that page at the time... But I think my answer is better than what the page had at the time

it omits some useless bits and has a few extra useful things, such as not running services

@GeorgeEdison Thanks for the pointer, I linked to the Ubuntu wiki in my answer. I don't see anything I'd want to add to my answer though

George Edison

Right.

Alec

What's the command to set a read-only directory & its contents to read & write?

Eliah Kagan

@Alec Assuming you want the directory and its contents to be read and write for the owner (of each file), use chmod -R u+rw directory-name

Alec

23:35

I ran that command, however when I try to edit files in that directory with gedit I get this error: "You don't have the permissions necessary to save the file."

Any ideas?

aking1012

if you're in the directory, back out of it

cd .. && chmod -R u+rw directory-name && cd -

Alec

cd /var/www && chmod -r u+rw /var/ww && cd -

So that?

I've just recently been getting into Linux.

aking1012

no

jokerdino

hi @JourneymanGeek. You too just woke up?

TheX

23:51

I have been awake for about 12 hours now...

aking1012

the suggestion was in case you were in ~/something and running chmod something. i was telling you to cd .. && chmod -R u+rw something && cd - in that case

@Alec you shouldn't make the entire /var/www RW in case you have .htaccess files or something with passwords etc

Alec

It's just going to be a website running on our home LAN. My dad's letting me use my server for once, they usually don't let me power it up cause it adds up to $40 on the electrical bill. I'm having fun toying with it. Security isn't a concern.

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