Posted by gmendoza on September 8, 2007 under Tech Tips | 
WARNING! THIS POST HAS BEEN MARKED AS OUTDATED!
While there may be useful information still contained within the article, there may be other more relevant articles out on the Internet. Please pay close attention to version numbers of software that this article refers to. If you're not careful, you could break your system if you do not understand what you are doing. If you would like to see this article updated, please contact the site administrator using the Contact page. Thanks!
If you’re interested in learning Oracle, you’ll be pleased to know that you can install a free version of it called Oracle Database Express Edition (XE); and it’s available for Debian and Ubuntu! This is great for anyone looking to learn one of the most popular enterprise databases in the world, without hurting the wallet. You can also freely distribute and develop against this platform, so it’s definitely worth giving it a try.
Visit their site for more details, and instructions for installing it via Oracle’s very own repository:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/linux/install/xe-on-kubuntu.html
Here’s my own paraphrase of the installation procedures.
Add Repository and Install:
$ echo "deb http://oss.oracle.com/debian unstable main non-free" | \
sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
$ wget http://oss.oracle.com/el4/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle -O- | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install oracle-xe
Configure and Start Database:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure
Get Started:
Applications -> Oracle Database 10g Express Edition -> Get Started
For a great tutorial on how to start using Oracle, be sure to check out the book “Hands-On Oracle Database 10g Express Edition for Linux“, (ISBN: 007226327X). You can find it at your local book store or on the web.
Oracle also has a free online tutorial located on their website:
http://st-curriculum.oracle.com/tutorial/DBXETutorial/index.htm
Posted by gmendoza on July 17, 2007 under Tech Tips |
Ubuntu Studio, released in May of 2007, is one of the latest flavors of the Ubuntu family cropping up these days aimed at sound, video and graphics enthusiasts and professionals alike. Sporting the same clean installation one would expect from a standard Ubuntu install, Ubuntu Studio offers a polished desktop, and a slew of open source multimedia applications. If content creation is your cup of tea, check out Ubuntu Studio 7.04 at www.ubuntustudio.org.
Posted by gmendoza on June 24, 2007 under Tech Tips |
WARNING! THIS POST HAS BEEN MARKED AS OUTDATED!
While there may be useful information still contained within the article, there may be other more relevant articles out on the Internet. Please pay close attention to version numbers of software that this article refers to. If you're not careful, you could break your system if you do not understand what you are doing. If you would like to see this article updated, please contact the site administrator using the Contact page. Thanks!
Updated (11/21/2007): I’ve added an updated version of this How-to on the community supported Ubuntu documentation site. The new document can be found at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SinglePacketAuthorization.
Single Packet Authorization (SPA) using “fwknop” is probably one of the coolest recent innovations in server and network access control technology. Just what is SPA, you ask? SPA is a method of limiting access to server and network resources by cryptographically authenticating users before any type TCP/IP stack access is allowed.
In it’s simplest form, your Linux server can have an inbound firewall rule that by default drops all access to any of it’s listening services. Nmap scans will completely fail to detect any open ports, and zero-day attacks will not have any effect on vulnerable services since the firewall is blocking access to the applications.
The server however has a nifty trick up it’s sleeve. An authorized user sends a single encrypted UDP packet that is passively sniffed and analyzed by the fwknopd service running on the server using pcap. If successfully authenticated, fwknopd dynamically creates an iptables firewall rule, granting the source IP address of the authorized client access to the service for a defined period of time (default is 30 seconds). Pretty frickin’ cool, eh?
Okay, so here’s how to get it working in Ubuntu 7.04. Read more of this article »