A variant of the shellshock bug that still works with the bash 4.3.11 shell.

This is a variant of the shellshock bug for bash that still works on a patched system. I am using Ubuntu 14.04 and this still works for me. env VAR1=’me() {echo "hello"}\ ‘ /bin/touch /home/$LOGNAME/my.textenv VAR1=’me() {echo "hello"}\ ‘ /bin/touch /home/$LOGNAME/my.text So you can still put arbitrary content after the function definition in a bash … Read more

Shellshock bug a wake up call for all Linux users, but not the end of the world.

The shellshock bug for Linux is a wake up call for all Linux administrators and home users, but this is not the end of the world. The Linux distribution developers will issue patches very soon after a leak of a bug like this. There is not going to be a massive catastrophe that the media … Read more

Check if you are vulnerable to the shellshock bug. This is an easy way to find out.

A vulnerable cygwin shell. Using the shellshock vulnerability to run ls in cygwin. Homer@bejiitas ~ $ x='() { :;}; `/bin/ls -hula`’ bash -c : bash: total 53K drwxrwxr-x+ 1 Homer Homer 0 Sep 26 18:38 . drwxrwxrwt+ 1 Homer Homer 0 Sep 26 2013 .. -rw-rw—- 1 Homer Homer 222 Sep 26 2013 .bash_history -rwxrwxr-x … Read more

How to upload files to your Amazon AWS instance using the bash shell and sftp.

This is how to copy files from the local machine to your Amazon instance when you are logged into the EC2 instance via SSH. Firstly, connect to the remote AWS instance by SSH. Then use the sftp command to connect back to your local Linux machine. sftp -P 443 [email protected] -P 443 [email protected] Then, you … Read more

How to reset a Windows XP password with the john the ripper utility and the Trinity Rescue kit.

The chntpw utility for Linux is very useful if you have “borrowed” the SAM file from C:\Windows\System32\config/SAM and you wish to try and reset the passwords. I tried this with a Windows XP SP3 password file and I managed to reset the User1 password to a blank one. The Trinity Rescue Kit makes using this … Read more

Some useful tips for using Amazon Web Services for running a Linux server.

Amazon Web Services is a very powerful way to run a virtualized server in the cloud, but there are some tips that will help you greatly when deploying a server for the first time. SSH access is one. Changing the SSH port from 22 to 443 in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file will help access when you … Read more

Another nostalgia posting. Some pictures of very old computing treasures from history.

Old AOL login window. Dialing up to an America Online system to get connected to the Internet. The old OS/2 Warp operating system from IBM. This was a very good operating system back in the day. Windows `95 on floppy disks. This would take a very long time to install compared to using a DVD … Read more

Elysium film showing real UNIX commands in a blockbuster movie.

The movie Elysium showcased some awesome UNIX shell commands. The rhost command was one, there is a more detailed show here: http://i.imgur.com/niqfmy5.png. The nmap port scanning utility is used to port scan Matt Damon`s brain before the data is copied from his neural storage to the Elysium computer system. I cannot see the full command; … Read more

How to change the shell for a user on a Linux system easily with the usermod command.

I recently created a new user with the adduser command. homer@deusexmachina:~/Documents$ sudo adduser jimkirk Adding user `jimkirk’ … Adding new group `jimkirk’ (1002) … Adding new user `jimkirk’ (1002) with group `jimkirk’ … Creating home directory `/home/jimkirk’ … Copying files from `/etc/skel’ … Enter new UNIX password: Retype new UNIX password: passwd: password updated successfully … Read more

How I fixed the Java out of memory issue on an Amazon AWS instance.

I was trying to get openmeetings working on an Amazon AWS instance today and I kept getting Java out of memory errors. I fixed this with this simple solution I found: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18078859/java-run-out-of-memory-issue. This fixed my problem and allowed the java application to start with a limited amount of memory. Try this out if you have … Read more