LinuxMint base on Debian

At long last, the wait is over. LinuxMint developers had already pronounced that their Debian-based OS (LMDE) is readily available for download. I've really been waiting for this rolling distro to come out and readily be available for download.

Expect bumps along the way since LMDE is on it's infancy stage.

Thanks to the Mint team for fulfilling such promise.

How to install BackTrack components in Ubuntu

I had been using BackTrack 4.0 Live since its release for certain tasks that needed to be done. I am an Ubuntu user and it had been my "dream" to integrate BackTrack components on my normal Ubuntu installation so I can use it without booting on LiveDVD environment.
The steps below will guide you on how you could achieve the necessary steps on installing this components.

1. Add the BackTrack repository on your sources.list file:

gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Input your password to authenticate this task. Add the line of text below on the last part of the file:

deb http://archive.offensive-security.com pwnsauce main microverse macroverse restricted universe multiverse

Save and Close the file.

2. Add BackTrack's GPG key using the Terminal command below:

wget -q http://archive.offensive-security.com/backtrack.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -ok-

3. Using the same Terminal window, update the repository using the command below:

sudo apt-get update

4. Open Synaptics (System -> Administration -> Synaptics Package Manager) and choose the Backtrack components you want to be installed on the left side of the Synaptics window.

Macchanger - Manipulate your system's MAC address

I'm always a fun of collecting useful utilities, and I'm proud to say that macchanger is one of them. I've always appreciated the usefulness of this utility that I made it a point to install it when installing a new version of Ubuntu/LinuxMint on my lappy.

Some features that this utility offer are:

- Set a MAC of another vendor
- Set another MAC of the same vendor
- Set specific MAC address of a network interface
- Set the MAC randomly

To install the macchanger utility:

sudo apt-get install macchanger macchanger-gtk

Here's how I setup macchanger to automatically change my NIC's MAC address to a random MAC address.

Create a file named changemac on your /etc/init.d/ folder with:

gksudo gedit /etc/init.d/changemac

The content of the changemac file would be the text below colored BLUE (copy and paste it).

# Start of script file
#!/bin/bash
# Disable all the network devices
ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig wlan0 down
# The value for wlan0 (eth1) would change depending on the driver you're using - Be it Broadcom's STA wireless driver or Broadcom's B43 wireless driver
# Spoof the current MAC addresses with a random MAC address
/usr/bin/macchanger -r eth0
/usr/bin/macchanger -r wlan0
# Re-enable all the network devices
ifconfig eth0 up
ifconfig wlan0 up
# End of script file

Save the file and set the file's permission to executable with:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/changemac

Enable the changemac script to execute a startup with:

sudo update-rc.d changemac defaults

Lastly, reboot your system and observe your registered new MAC address.

A view of Sheikh Zayed Mosque

A view of the Sheikh Zayed mosque during midday at a distance, located in Abu Dhabi, UAE. It holds a record of being the 8'th largest mosque in the world and was named after Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan - the founder and father of the UAE.

One of Abu Dhabi's finest sceneries and architecture.

Switching back to text-mode location bar in Linux Mint 9 (Ubuntu 10.04)

I had just installed the latest version of LinuxMint on my Lenovo laptop and found out that Nautilus does not anymore give you an option to toggle the location bar to text-mode display.

Using the terminal command below, it will display the current folder location using text-mode:

gconftool-2 --type=Boolean --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_location_entry true

To toggle it back to it's default settings, just change the value to "false".

gconftool-2 --type=Boolean --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_location_entry false

With Isadora (LinuxMint 9), everything's just got better and sweeter.

Fixing Firefox 3.6 annoying NEW tab feature

I had just upgraded my Mozilla Firefox 3.5.9 to 3.6 version and was a bit surprised on how it presented me with creating "New Tabs". I was used on seeing it appear on the right-most part of the current tabs but now, with this new version, it simply create a tab just next to the current tab which is a bit annoying as it confuses me on my tabs current order. Well, if you want to get away with this "new" feature (which I really don't like) - You could try following the steps below and have Firefox create a new tab on the rightmost part of the tab section.

1. On FireFox's address bar, type:  “about:config“
2. Click on the “I’ll be careful" button.
3. Find/Scroll down to “browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent“
4. Double-click on it to change/set its value to “false"

Fun with port forwarding

The other day, We finished installing five (5) Vivotek IP-based cameras. All devices are working well as
expected, the five cameras are powered by a PoE (Power over Ethernet) Dlink switch cascaded to the
client's main distribution switches where it connects to a QNAP Viostor (Linux-based OS) NAS server for
storage.
Not contented with just viewing the from inside the office LAN, the client wanted remote access. Remote
access in the sense that he can still view/control the installed cameras even if he's away from the
office and better yet, even at home. Why not, that would be great and easy to do as the cameras and the
QNAP Viostor come with the DynDns (Dynamic DNS) feature. I can configure each cameras to be remotely
viewed separately but why would I waste time when I can configure the Viostor device where I can view all
cameras on a single page. In order to achieve this, I had to do port-forwarding.
Here are the easy steps I did to achieve remote viewing:
1.) As always, many ADSL connections are connected to a service provider via dynamic public IP address.
You need to create an account from dyndns.org or no-ip.com if you want an automated IP address update
whenever your IP lease expires. Isn't it fun to input http://namespace.dnydns.org:64000 rather than
http://xxx.xxx.xxx:64000? Where xxx.xxx.xxx stands for a public 32-bit IP address (i.e: 69.108.100.77).
2.) Configure port-forwarding on your ADSL router/modem. In my case, I forwarded port 64001 for both TCP
and UDP to QNAP Viostor's private IP address which is 192.168.200.10.
Typically, port-forwarding on a router will ask you for:
Name - The name you wanted for your port-forwarding rule. I named it IPCamera.
IP Address - This is the private IP address of my QNAP Viostor where I would like to bind port 64000.
Port Range - Service port you want to use. In my case, I used port 64000
Protocol - Either TCP or UDP or Both.
3.) I opened the web-management page of the QNAP Viostor so I could configure and activate it's dynamic
DNS feature. Firefox on LinuxMint (or any other Linux distro) is a no-go for it needs to install an
ActiveX which isn't supported under LinuxMint. Luckily, I have Sun's Virtualbox installed with a pirated
Windows XP as a guest OS so I continued configuring it's dynamic DNS feature.
The required field are as follows:
Service Name - You have to choose the name of a dynamic DNS provider here. If you registered with
dyndns.org or no-ip.com, you have to select dyndns.org (Dynamic) or no-ip.com respectively.
Hostname - The name you configured for a host under dyndns or no-ip. Let's call it
clientcompany.gotdns.org.
Registered Username - The username you used for registration under dyndns or no-ip.
Registered Password - The password you used for registration under dyndns or no-ip.
4.) Step 4 would be the critical part: We have to test if the port we forwarded on the router/modem is
open and ready to accept connection. My favorite online tool for port testing is either https://
www.grc.com or http://www.canyouseeme.org. Be sure that the port tested is in OPEN state.
With the steps above, the client can now view and control the camera's by opening the browser (IE is
recommended since it uses ActiveX) and input the configured dynamic DNS hostname with its corresponding
forwarded port.

Sample:
http://the.hostname_here.dyndns.org:64000