Linux Solutions

A good thing about Linux is the rate that something breaks it gets fixed pretty fast, like the e1000e Ethernet bug.

Don’t have clue what I’m talking about? I’ll explain: A pre-release version of the 2.6.27 Linux kernel, which was being used in numerous beta Linux distros, was – at times – melting the Ethernet firmware in systems equipped with the Intel ICH8 and ICH9 chipset and their 82566 and 82567 Ethernet chipsets. The main players involved were Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Beta 1 and openSUSE 11 Beta 1; Mandriva Linux 2009; Gentoo Linux; Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex; and Fedora 10 release candidates 1 and 2.

General users were unlikely to see this bug, but a lot people play around with beta Linux distros. Fedora, in particular was at the point of shipping so its fair to assume a lot of users were testing all aspects of it.

Thanks to Intel, and some input from Linux founder Linus Torvalds, there’s a code that will fix the issue. This fix will be in the next pre-release version of the 2.6.27 kernel – Linux 2.6.27-rc9 – on October 5th.

Torvalds ensured he guided the Linux development team in the right direction via the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) that “Btw, the _real_ bug is clearly in the hardware design that allows you to brick those things without apparently even having a lock bit.”

He continued, “I’m hoping Intel doesn’t treat this as just a software bug. Some hw designer should be thinking hard about which orifice they put their head up in. It used to be that you could fry some monitors by feeding them out-of-range signals. The _monitors_ got fixed.”

The following day, Bruce Allen a Linux kernel developer and Intel engineer, announced the release of a “patch [which] is meant to prevent all future corruptions of the e1000e NVM (non volatile memory) after the driver is loaded.”

Torvalds then applied it to the next test version of the kernel.

Allen explained on the LKML what he’d done, “This should allow us to move forward with debugging without allowing any other bad element or the e1000e driver, to write to the NVM area unexpectedly.”

“Currently we (Intel Ethernet) are reproducing the issue on multiple machines in house, we are working on the issue with the other core Linux teams here at Intel and within the community. No resolution yet but we are much closer now.”

Once the problem is nailed down, “we will post patches to help users who have had this problem restore their eeprom from either a saved image from ethtool -e or from another identical system.”

And that’s, that. By the time the next Linux Kernel – 2.6.28 – comes out later this year, this will just go down in developer bug history, rather than current problem.

Linden Lab, the creator of virtual world ‘Second Life’, acknowledged the accomplishments of the open source community this week at its Linden Lab Innovation Awards. The “Mixed Reality” ceremony awarded seven winners at a convention centre in Florida, as well as on Second Life.

This is the second time this event has taken place, and Linden Lab’s head of open source development Rob Lanphier took the stand to present the awards, at the Second Life Community Convention (SLCC). A panel of six judges selected the winners, who each received a “Hippo Award” prize package.

Judges chose two winners in the Best Documentation category. Asuka Neely and Gally Young were awarded for their contributions translating volumes of Second Life wiki documentation into Japanese and French, respectively.

The Best Community Organiser category was spilt in to two areas, one went to Tao Takahi for Best Working Group Organiser for his contributions to the Second Life Architecture Working Group (AWG) ,who are the group that pusses to standardise the protocols and data formats used in the system to make them interproperable with other virtual worlds. The other award went to Harleen Gretzky was recognised as Best Issue Tracker Organiser for her work on PJIRA, the projects issue tracker.

Mm Adler was awarded the Best Code Contribution award, for her voice-to-lip synching model, that was described by Lanphier as “tidy and thoughtful in its execution”.

The Jesse Malthus Award for Best Community Influence - named in memory of a respected Second Life developer and community member who died last year – went to Lex Neva, who was singled out not only for making significant contributions to issue tracking on PJIRA, but also for maintaining “constructive and thoughtful” commentary and dialog within the Second Life community.

The final award went to Michelle Zenovka, for Contributor of the Year, for her code contributions in transmitting the Second Life viewer to CMake, and bringing up the Linux viewer client up to scratch with the Windows and Mac OS X builds.

Nominations for the awards are open to the community.

A glitch in VMware’s most recent update had its customers up in arms this week. The problems were caused by a bug from the beta version of the software that engineers failed/forgot to remove which left VMware users unable to power on virtual machines running the hypervisor software.

The bug, referred to as a “time bomb”, is code that developers insert in beta software to push users to upgrade to an application’s final version. The code is a commonly used tool for developers; however it must be removed from anything into which it has been inserted prior to final release.

The virtualisation software maker released an “express patch” on Wednesday to fix the glitch. However, VMware customers have been left a little disgruntled, and the incident has made the company look a bit amateurish.

The way people look at VMware after the cock-up is “definitely not very good,” according to Gary Chen, a Yankee Group analyst.

“This is the most publicised issue they’ve had in their history, and it’s really the sort of embarrassing bug that never should have made it past QA (quality assurance),” he told said.

In a letter posted on the company’s blog, Paul Maritz, VMware’s recently appointed chief executive officer said: “Last night, we became aware of a code issue with the recently released update to ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5 (Update 2).”

According to Maritz, when the time clock in a server running the updated ESX 3.5 or ESXi 3.5 software registered 12:00 a.m. on August 12, 2008, the code caused the product license to expire. As a result of this, powered-off virtual machines could not be turned on; those that had been suspended could not be awakened from that mode; and machines could not migrate using Vmotion.

The problem has also occurred with a recent patch to ESX 3.5 or ESXi 3.5 Update 2. The company has begun a review of its QA processes, Maritz said. (Which means someone’s getting the sack)

To VMware’s credit that it took less than 24 hours to come up with a patch that seems to have corrected the problem, said Chen.

“From what I’ve heard, the patch fixes the problem. You do have to give kudos to VMware for addressing the issue so quickly,” he noted.

Some users have turned to VMware’s Communities discussion pages to vent. “As a VMware Enterprise Partner and VMware Authorized Consultant, I can tell you this IS a big deal for VMware to release a product that has such grave consequences for even a relatively small portion of the total VMware user population,” wrote one user.

“A small percentage does not diminish the severity of problem for affected users and the upmost urgency is expected from a company that caters to enterprise customers who don’t have ‘downtime’ in their corporate dictionary anymore.

“Bugs happen,” the poster continued. “However, I believe this could have been prevented by not rushing an update to market which was intended to be free and compete with [Microsoft’s] Hyper V. This will no doubt teach VMware a lesson and unfortunately will cast doubt about the reliability of VMware in the enterprise. It’s a shame a clearly superior product is going to get bad publicity from this oversight. Let’s give them credit and hope they learn from their mistakes.”

Chen pointed out that most customers were glad of the quick response time from VMware: “The issue was fixed quickly, and there was lots of communication as to the status, cause and future changes to prevent another incident,” he said.

“However, some faith has been lost, as most customers I’ve talked to are disappointed that a bug like this made it past QA. Many admins have been pushing virtualisation to their executives, and this doesn’t help their case,” Chen added.

“Virtualisation is still in the emerging stages, and enterprise reliability is a huge issue that can only be proven over time,” said Chen. “Vendors have been pushing the idea that it is enterprise-ready, and an incident like this hurts not only VMware but the entire virtualisation movement. Virtualisation is inevitable and will certainly continue to proceed, but people will slow down and think more about how to protect themselves against things like this.”

“More and more people are using it, and a major incident, whether a bug or a security hack, could freeze your entire infrastructure. I think people will begin to re-evaluate their options and contingency plans for an incident like this, including perhaps diversifying their infrastructure and adopting multiple hypervisors,” Chen concluded.

Embedded designer Paul Thomas is showcasing a tiny, open source computer at Linuxworld in San Francisco this week. “Linuxstamp” enthusiasts can obtain pre-built boards for $120 directly from the designer himself, or they can download the design and build it themselves for free.

Consisting of six integrated circuits; processor, flash, RAM, serial-to-USB, Ethernet PHY, and power converter, as well as a few passives.

Thomas demonstrated the capabilities of the Linuxstamp in the “Garage” area of Linuxworld. He showed a home-made robotic car, which was made with Lego, and moved around by wheels controlled by the stamp.

The Linuxstamp’s features include:

Atmel AT91RM9200 processor (ARM9 core, includes MMU)
32MB SDRAM
8MB SPI flash memory
10/100 Ethernet (supplied by the Atmel processor)
USB host port (supplied by the Atmel processor)
USB device port (generated by a serial/USB converter)
SD card slot
USB debug port (via the USB device port)
JTAG port
Can be powered via POE

Thomas tried to ensure the design remained simple so as to allow for a two-layer CB design, which reduces cost and encourages homebrew construction.

With the inclusion of a USB-based serial debug port, implemented via a serial/USB converter chip, users won’t need to use the boards JTAG debug port, according to Thomas.

Initialisation of the board’s low-level bootstrap loader is simple, Thomas said. The Atmel processor includes an innovative, built in hardware bootstrap function that automatically attempts to load the onboard SPI flash via the serial debug port when a newly built board powers up for the first time

The Linuxstamp runs Linux with two distributions currently available: a minimal filesystem that boots and runs entirely from within the Linuxstamp’s 8MB flash and 32MB RAM memory; and a debian-based filesystem that requires an SD card to supplement the board’s on-board flash.

In addition to the linux kernel, the minimal filesystem includes BusyBox and DropBear SSH among other basic system functions. The minimal system allocates about 2MB of the 8MB available flash to linux and the boot-loaders, with the rest for the filesystem, according to Thomas.

Ubuntu Linux 7.04 is now available for Sharp’s Zaurus PDAs thanks to Omegamoon, a hacker who has previously worked on ports of Fedora Linux and Google’s Android phone stack to the Zaurus.
The 0.1 release comes with a minimalist filesystem that can be launched in an emulator, enhanced with software from Ubuntu archives and then flashed on to a real Zaurus.

Omegamoon suggests first trying the distro out in the free QEMU emulator, where configuration and tweaking is more straight forward than on real hardware. Once the customizations have been completed, it can then be installed on Zaurus PDAs such as the SL-C3100.

The project was inspired by Nokia’s Handheld Mojo project, which is porting Ubuntu to the ARM architecture.

At CELF’s recent Embedded Linux Conference, Mojo project leader Andrew Christian noted that while Nokia’s Maemo project has packaged 500-600 Linux binaries, Ubuntu packages upwards of 12,000. He believes that porting Unbuntu to ARM and then to the Zaurus should make for greater software versatility.

Omegamoon drew pre-built binaries from the ARMv5EL (ARM9) branch of Mojo Projects Frisky Firedrake tree to create his root filesystem. Built by natively compiling source packages from Unbuntu’s Feisty Fawn (7.04) distribution, Mojo’s Frisky tree also offers an ARMv6EL-VFP or ARM11 branch. Additionally, Mojo has produced a “Grumpy Griffin” build based on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10), with a Hasty Hippogriff build derived from Hardy Heron planned but not yet underway.

For the kernel, Omegamoon has tapped Debian for a pre-built “versatile” ARM kernel image based on 2.6.24.

The 0.1 Ubuntu Zaurus Distribution is around 80MB (compressed) and the root filesystem download comes with the X Window System, but lets the user choose which window manager to install. Omegamoon has suggested running the distro under QEMU initially, using a bootp server to set up networking, rather than configuring a network bridge device.

Omegamoon has emphasized the early nature of the distribution. “Early users should expect to encounter interesting puzzles and challenges…there’s a lot left to tweak of course, but a full blown Ubuntu is on it’s way.”

He adds, “This is really cool, having the same OS running on my desktop and on the much smaller Zaurus. This proves that the Zaurus is the ultimate mini-laptop.”

It seems that the news for Linux just gets better and better with a commitment from Dell, HP and Lenovo that they will “strongly encourage” the production and delivery of open-source drivers which make use of the Linux kernel. So what does this mean?

The Linux kernel is the heart beat of the operation system and allows the operating system to communicate with hardware and software to ensure the smooth running of your computer system. The fact that the likes of Dell, HP and Lenovo are set to champion their cause is a major boost to an operating system which seems to be going from strength to strength.

While there have always been Linux drivers which will allow your system to communicate with other hardware and software, the move to open source drivers is a big step. This now means that the code for Linux based drivers will be in the market place and allow any skilled third party to make amendments, rather than returning to the original creator of the driver.

The move to open source drivers is the next step in the attack on the likes of Windows, which retains total control over access to their inner Windows kernel (for obvious commercial reasons). While the Linux Foundation have been very vocal in their support of the Linux operating system, the take up by Dell, HP and Lenovo allows someone else (majors in the industry) to pick up the baton and run with it on behalf of the Foundation.

There are still many who have doubts about the ability of Linux to move into the mainstream, but each increase in exposure and each addition to the Linux “fan club” is a step forward. The next few years are critical for Linux and it will be interesting to see how it develops.

At a time when some of the main players in the world of Linux operating systems are taking a step back from challenging the might Microsoft it seems that Ubuntu and the Linux based Ubuntu 8.04 operating system are set to go head to head with Windows, but will they crack it? Why are they so different?

While it is well know that the likes of Ubuntu 8.04 will struggle to obtain hardware and software certification from the main players in the market, their possible door into the market may have come in the form of Dell. Dell, rumoured to be keen to move away from Windows and take some of the power from Microsoft, has installed the Ubuntu 8.04 operating system in a number of their new mainstream desktop and notebook systems. So will this be enough?

While Ubuntu on their own would stand very little chance of receiving the necessary hardware and software certifications required to “make it big”, with Dell backing them they must stand more of a chance. It is also interesting to see that over the last couple of years we are starting to see interest in non-Microsoft browsers grow, with Firefox perhaps the best known of the alternatives available.

Slowly but surely there seems to be a growing wave of optimism in the Linux arena that they can collectively, put together a strong challenge to Microsoft Windows. Those in the computing industry who have tested operating systems such as the Ubuntu 8.04 package have been pleasantly surprised by the flexibility and the speed of the system. For too long we have all been conditioned to the fact that we do not need to look beyond Windows, but perhaps now times are changing?

As the operating systems industry continues to evolve and grow we are seeing more interest in alternatives to Microsoft. Perhaps the years of dictating to the markets are about to come back and haunt Microsoft?

In a move which has angered as much as surprised many in the industry, the third world campaign to promote the use of laptops as a tool for education, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) have attacked the creditability of Linux and the Open Source sector in general. So what is happening?

There seems to be a lot of confusion and many will not be surprised to see the name of Microsoft and the Windows operating system very much at the fore. While many viewed the Linux based operating system as perfect for such a cost conscious campaign, it seems that all is not well with the founder of OLPC. Nicholas Negroponte has accused the open source community of pushing Linux into this new area of the market, stressing that many people were aware of Microsoft and wondering why they were not involved in some way.

We are getting to a situation now where it seems to be more of a marketing disagreement with OLPC seemingly a little aggrieved that Linux has been able to benefit from the increased profile which the OLPC campaign has given them.

However, those in the know are a little surprised that the OLPC has taken this tone as surely a free open source operating system has as much to offer those who have never even seen a computer as a commercial package? Introducing something like Microsoft Windows would add millions of pounds to the cost of the OLPC campaign. Then there is also the knock on affect of software costs and the fact that Microsoft would stand to gain financially in the long run.

In years gone by this type of spat would not normally have received a mention in the press but the fact that Linux is growing in use and in profile seems to be upsetting some people. But surely a service which needs to cut costs to the bone would need to use Linux, rather than paying for a commercial package?

While there is no doubt that the next big technology market will be the mobile communications sector, many of the new entrants are going to find it very difficult to compete with the likes of Apple who have great areas of the industry all to themselves. So what can we expect from mobile Linux?

Intel have announced plans to release a series of Linux based mobile devices to try and compete with the likes of Apple and take some market share off the seemingly impregnable iPhone. However, the recent technology show in Shanghai, China showed many investors and consumers that it may not as easy to go head to head with Apple as some may have you believe. While there is no reason why Linux cannot be the operating system behind a whole host of successful mobile devices, the Intel products which were on show looked very basic indeed.

It is ok using an Open Source system to power the machine, thereby in theory offering the chance to cut costs to the bone, but there is still a need to ensure that the design, device and interface are good enough to make an impact. Unfortunately this new device from Intel is not yet there and in its current form it will not even worry the Apple management. Even though it seems that Intel have got the message, there are still concerns that even though Linux is more than up to the task, it may prove a little difficult finding a quick fix to the design and interface problems.

Surely once we see Linux creating a splash in the market we will see more and more technology companies following suit, but until then it seems that it is back to the drawing board for Intel. However, there is every chance that they will be back soon with new ideas and hopefully a new design.

Linux Operating System is known as most secure and most popular OS all around and very much stable too. Data Security in Linux Server could be maintained by making an effective data security strategy. Corporate data security could be implemented by applying proper data security strategy for Linux Server.

There are many Linux distributions are there and most popular among them are Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu and SuSE etc. This article contains basics of security for Linux Red Hat 9.

We assume that you have installed Linux OS with x11(GUI for Red Hat). Graphical User Interface should not be enabled for to get best level security.
You can use find / -name filename command to locate or find a file and pico or vi to edit a file.
Securing You Linux Box:

First of all you need to secure your Linux box by taking some actions to prevent unauthorized users access. It is necessary to secure Linux box because server monitoring could be viewed using Linux box.
Change Root Password:
Changing root password within 30 days is a good idea and you should use highest security level terms as Linux root password. To reset Linux root password passwd command is used while logged in as root.

One thing is very dangerous with respect to security that to be able to run an application as different user like with suid( set user ID) command an unauthorized user can run application same like privileged user and can access and edit /etc/passwd file. You should find files which are using suid and file with an s in permission column runs with suid.

# ls -alF `find / -perm -4000` > /root/suid.txt

You may get the following result on server of this command in /root/suid.txt.

-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 60104 Feb 1 2007 /bin/mount*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 35192 Feb 18 2007 /bin/ping*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 19116 Feb 8 2007 /bin/su*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 30664 Feb 1 2007 /bin/umount*
-r-sr-xr-x 1 root root 120264 Feb 9 2007 /sbin/pwdb_chkpwd*
-r-sr-xr-x 1 root root 16992 Feb 9 2007 /sbin/unix_chkpwd*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 37528 Dec 17 2007 /usr/bin/at*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 34296 Apr 27 2007 /usr/bin/chage*
-rws–x–x 1 root root 12072 Feb 1 2007 /usr/bin/chfn*
-rws–x–x 1 root root 11496 Feb 1 2007 /usr/bin/chsh*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 21080 Feb 15 2007 /usr/bin/crontab*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 36100 Mar 27 2007 /usr/bin/gpasswd*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 19927 Feb 17 2007 /usr/bin/lppasswd*
-rws–x–x 1 root root 4764 Feb 1 2007 /usr/bin/newgrp*
-r-s–x–x 1 root root 15104 Mar 13 2007 /usr/bin/passwd*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 14588 Jul 24 2006 /usr/bin/rcp*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 10940 Jul 24 2006 /usr/bin/rlogin*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 7932 Jul 24 2006 /usr/bin/rsh*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 219932 Feb 4 2007 /usr/bin/ssh*
—s–x–x 1 root root 84680 Feb 18 2007 /usr/bin/sudo*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 32673 Apr 18 2007 /usr/sbin/ping6*
-r-sr-xr-x 1 root root 451280 Feb 8 2007 /usr/sbin/sendmail.sendmail*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 20140 Mar 14 2007 /usr/sbin/traceroute*
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 13994 Feb 18 2007 /usr/sbin/traceroute6*
-rws–x–x 1 root root 22388 Feb 15 2007 /usr/sbin/userhelper*

-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 17461 Feb 19 2007 /usr/sbin/usernetctl*

Some Linux System Administrator recommend disabling ping and traceroute services which is not necessary. However, you should disable the following
/usr/bin/chage, /usr/bin/chfn, /usr/bins/chsh, /bin/mount,
/bin/umount, /usr/bin/gpasswd, /usr/sbin/usernetctl, /usr/sbin/traceroute, /usr/sbin/traceroute6, /usr/bin/newgrp, /usr/sbin/ping6, and /bin/ping.

When you have disabled suid then files can be executed only by owner. To disable suid use the following command.

#chmod 111 /path/to/file
#chattr +I /path/to/file