Here are some quick tip(s) for copying a ton of files between unixy machines really fast. You’re probably thinking “why not use rsync?”…..well rsync can be miserably slow if your source or destination cpu is underpowered. You can always do a rsync after these commands to make 100% certain that everything checks out, but try using one of these methods for the initial copy:

• One way of doing it is

  tar -c /path/to/dir | ssh user@remote_server 'tar -xpvf - -C /absolute/path/to/remotedir'

  You’ll be prompted for the remote servers password or you can use the private key of the remote server using the -i switch in the ssh command. This has the side benefit of preserving permissions. An alternate version of this command can also be used to locally move folder structures across mount points while preserving permissions: 

  tar -cf - -C srcdir . | tar -xpf - -C destdir

  or

  cd srcdir ; tar -cf - . | (cd destdir ; tar -xpf -)

• Another way of doing it with netcat (nc) is

  srv1$ tar -cfv - * | nc -w1 remote.server.net 4321

  followed by

  srv2$ nc -l -p 4321 |tar -xpfv - 

  Note that you type the first command on the source machine and the second command on the destination machine.

• Yet another way of doing it with socat utility is

  host1$ tar -cvf - * | socat stdin tcp4:host2:portnum

  followed by

  host2$ socat tcp4-listen:portnum stdout | tar -xvpf - 

  Note that you type the first command on the source machine and the second command on the destination machine.

Once your favourite process (above) is done you can do a quick rsync to tie up any loose ends.

rsync -avW -e ssh /path/to/dir/ remote_server:/path/to/remotedir

Rsync will now fly through the filesystem as 99.9% of the time, 99.9% of the files on the destination are good. And as always make sure you understand the commands before you use them…..and keep backups just in case :-).

If you try to install Ubuntu 10.10 under parallels desktop 6.0 on OSX — atleast as of the writing of this article — you’ll soon discover that although your entire installation is done in a high (eg: 1920×1080) resolution, as soon as the install is done and you reboot, your VM is stuck at 1024×768. You can install the parallel tools using the menu option and it still won’t help — although it helps with 3D (ie: compiz). Under Gnomes System/Preferences/Monitors the highest resolution available is 1024×768 :-(. After searching around the net for the past week or so and trying just about every remedy — which did not work — I was about to give up, then I found the magic command that “makes it go” :-).

I’ve now got Ubuntu 10.10 running with PT/compiz under parallels 6.0 @ 1920×1080. No problem. Normally if you go inside ~/.config/ directory (.config folder under your home directory) you’ll notice that there is no “monitors.xml” file in there. That’s the per user X config file that gets the ball rolling. Generating the file is really easy. Open a teminal and issue the following command:

xrandr

This will generate (hopefully) the following output:

Note that 1024×768 is the default. Now if you go inside ~/.config/ directory you’ll find a “monitors.xml” file (below). Once you’ve got this file you can go to System/Preferences/Monitors and choose the higher resolution options (eg:1920×1080). The xrandr command should generate the file for you. If it doesn’t (not sure why), here is my version for parallel 6.0. I think it’s pretty generic so you should be able to cut and paste the content:

<monitors version="1">
  <configuration>
      <clone>no</clone>
      <output name="default">
          <vendor>???</vendor>
          <product>0x0000</product>
          <serial>0x00000000</serial>
          <width>1920</width>
          <height>1200</height>
          <rate>60</rate>
          <x>0</x>
          <y>0</y>
          <rotation>normal</rotation>
          <reflect_x>no</reflect_x>
          <reflect_y>no</reflect_y>
          <primary>no</primary>
      </output>
  </configuration>
</monitors>

If you’ve recently installed Ubuntu 10.10 and have installed Nvidia and/or ATI drivers — or installed ubuntu under emulation — you’ll end up with a (butt) ugly splash screen. In my case under parallel 6.0 I ended up with a text boot screen that just read “Ubuntu 10.10″……Ughhh. Here is a quick tutorial on how to get a nice splash restored. This procedure also works in 10.04. Keep in mind that I’m doing everything with 1280×1024 screen size. your mileage might vary (ie: you might want 1024×768). You’ll need to get a terminal session opened for this:

• Get the nice splash screen installed

  sudo apt-get install v86d

• Edit your grub config file and add the following

  sudo vi /etc/default/grub

• Look for this line:

  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

• and replace it with this (note: 1280×1024 screen res…..your mileage might vary):

  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset video=uvesafb:mode_option=1280x1024-24,mtrr=3,scroll=ywrap"

• Still in the same file look for this line:

  #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

• and replace it with this (note: 1280×1024 screen res…..your mileage might vary):

  GRUB_GFXMODE=1280x1024

Your /etc/default/grub file should look like this once you’re done (partial screenshot):

• Save the file and issue the following command to start editing /etc/initramfs-tools/modules file:

  sudo vi /etc/initramfs-tools/modules

• The file should be mostly commented out. At the end of the file insert the following line (note: 1280×1024 screen res…..your mileage might vary):

  uvesafb mode_option=1280x1024-24 mtrr=3 scroll=ywrap

Your /etc/initramfs-tools/modules file should look like this once you’re done:

• Save the file and issue the following command:

  echo FRAMEBUFFER=y | sudo tee /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash

• Finally issue the following two command to update grub:

  sudo update-grub2

  sudo update-initramfs -u

Reboot and Enjoy :-)

For those of you who don’t know OpenShot Video Editor(TM) is an open-source program that creates, modifies, and edits video files. OpenShot provides extensive editing and compositing features, and has been designed as a practical tool for working with high-definition video including HDV and AVCHD.

Jonathan Thomas and crew have reached their 1.0 milestone (congrats :-)). The program is rock solid and is running beautifully on my Ubuntu 9.10 installation.

OpenShot’s Features include:

• Support for many video, audio, and image formats (based on FFmpeg)
• Gnome integration (drag and drop support)
• Multiple tracks
• Clip resizing, trimming, snapping, and cutting
• Video transitions with real-time previews
• Compositing, image overlays, watermarks
• Title templates, title creation
• SVG friendly, to create and include titles and credits
• Scrolling motion picture credits
• Solid color clips (including alpha compositing)
• Support for Rotoscoping / Image sequences
• Drag and drop timeline
• Frame stepping, key-mappings: J,K, and L keys
• Video encoding (based on FFmpeg)
• Key Frame animation
• Digital zooming of video clips
• Speed changes on clips (slow motion etc)
• Custom transition lumas and masks
• Re-sizing of clips (frame size)
• Audio mixing and editing
• Presets for key frame animations and layout
• Ken Burns effect (making video by panning over an image)
• Digital video effects, including brightness, gamma, hue, greyscale, chroma key (bluescreen/greenscreen), and over 20 other video effects.

I recently upgraded netbook using the distribution upgrade and didn’t like the results, so I reinstalled Ubuntu Notebook Remix 9.10 Karmic Koala. Well, I’m sorry but I don’t think this Koala was ready for release. First there was the issue of where the heck are all the beloved Ubuntu tools. Gone is the Add/Remove software progy (you have to install manually), now we have Ubuntu Software Centre. Gone is being able to check off multiple packages for batch install, USC installs apps one at a time (which takes two mouse clicks per app).

To top it off — atleast in UNR 9.10 — there is no install button once you click on the arrow beside the packages. No, it’s not a problem with root/admin, I tried running it as root and same thing, NO INSTALL BUTTON on the install screen. Anyways it turns out once you get past the gargantuan Windows XP like update (125 updates) using the following two commands, the Ubuntu Software Centre magically comes back to life and gives you the “oh so important” install button. Come on Ubuntu…..I thought you were friendly. This Koala Bites HARD!!! :-). So the magic commands are….yeah you guessed it:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

BTW. If at some point the upgrade asks to replace /etc/defaults/grub say “yes” and go with the newer version. It does not harm the system.

Downloaded and installed 9.10 yesterday and what do you know, someone decided to take away Ctrl-Alt-Backspace — or what I call “Three Finger Salute for Linux”. Whhhaaattt!!!!

Okay if you know about gksudo, fine. I just found out about it a little while back when I was trying to run ethereal. You see under Ubuntu (and a lot of other Linux distros) the concept of root user has been removed. There is no root (well there is, but you can’t access it), unless you specifically modify your system to activate it. That’s fine (most of the time), since you can use sudo to accomplish almost anything as the administrator. One thing that doesn’t work properly are the graphical applications that need root access. So here is where gksudo comes to rescue. In the case of ethereal I would issue the following command to get it to prompt me for sudo and run as root user:
gksudo ethereal
So next time you get tempted to open up that root account on your Ubuntu install, don’t, use gksudo and get those gui apps running as root.

I love Ubuntu, but there is one thing that really bugs the hell out of me. The default configured editor in Ubuntu is nano, a Pico clone. I hate Pico, therefor I hate nano :-). So how would you go about fixing this and changing the default editor to vi (or vim):

1. Issue the following command: sudo update-alternatives --config editor
2. Enter the superuser password when prompted.
3. At the following screen choose the number beside the editor you want as default or alternatively just press Enter to keep the default the same.

   There are 3 alternatives which provide `editor'.
   
     Selection    Alternative
   -----------------------------------------------
             1    /usr/bin/vim.tiny
             2    /bin/ed
   *+        3    /bin/nano
   
   Press enter to keep the default[*], or type selection number: 1
   Using '/usr/bin/vim.tiny' to provide 'editor'.

That’s it…..Have fun.

So after yesterdays rant, I went back and figured out how to install the Cacti monitoring software (OSS, Free) onto a Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty Jackalope” Desktop installation. This guide uses packages only, no compiling, no Makefiles or anything like that…..You should be able to just follow this and get a fully functioning Cacti installation in about 30 minutes. Here are the steps:

1. install ubuntu 9.04 (“Jaunty Jackalope“) Desktop Edition on your machine
2. Login, open a Shell window and install ubuntu LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) server stack on your machine
   “sudo tasksel install lamp-server”.
   Note: Make sure you remember the password for “root” user in mysql Database, write it down somewhere, we will need it later on.
3. Get a superuser shell started since it will make for less typing.
   “sudo -i”
   followed by your password. Be carefull from now on, you’re ROOT and can literally destroy your system if you issue the wrong command. Follow along by typing the commands in the rest of this document and answering the prompts where appropriate.
4. Issue:
   “apt-get install rrdtool snmp php5-snmp php5 php5-gd”
   This will get all of the prereqs installed on your system. Answer “yes” when prompted for additional packages. 
5. Issue:
   “apt-get install cacti-cactid”
   This will get cacti and cacti server installed. Again answer “yes” when prompted for additional packages.
6. You’ll be presented with a bunch of ANSI screens that ask for information or give you choices to configure “libphp-adodb” package. Follow as per below:
• Click “Okay” on php.ini update path (screen 1).
• Choose “Apache 2″ from the pull down on next screen (screen 2).
• Click “Okay” on cacti and spine configuration screen (screen 3).
• At this point some config scripts will run and you’ll see a bunch on jiberish on the screen. Let it go, don’t touch nothing.
• Click “yes” on the dbconfig-common screen and provide the password from step 2. (above) for the mysql “root” user (screen 4).
• Now you’re prompted to choose a password for a new mysql user known as “cacti”. I used the same password as “root” user since my system is single user only. You will need to confirm the password on the next screen (screen 5,6).
• Almost there……..
7. Now the hard part is over. Start your browser and point it at http://localhost/cacti — assuming you’re running the browser on the cacti machine — or the appropriate IP address instead of localhost.
8. Click “Next” on the first screen (might want to read it too).
9. Select “New Install” on screen 2 and Click “Next”
10. On the next screen (Path Check screen) make sure everything is found and make 100% sure to select “RRDTool 1.2.x” from the RRDTool utility version pull down. Click “Finish” when you’re done.
11. You’ll see the login screen. Use Username “admin” and Password “admin” to login. On the next screen you’re forced to change the password for user admin. This is a good thing. Change the password to something complicated and easy to remember (does that exist?). Click “Save”.
12. Make sure under Configuration Settings/Paths that “Spine Poller file path” is correctly set to “/usr/sbin/spine”, and its found.
13. Make sure under Configuration Settings/Poller you select “Poller type” and set it to “spine” and Click “Save”. You’re done……Please RTFM for more Cacti info (or come back here and you might potentially find another episode of my ramblings). Have Fun!!

This used to be a pain in the butt. Lots of manual apt-get lines and config edits to get it to work. Weŕe talking about installing the LAMP stack onto a preexisting Ubuntu Desktop Edition installation. I used to do this backwards in the old days by installing the Server edition first (with LAMP) and then getting the graphical desktop goodies installed on top of that. That method still works, but I found out that LAMP stack install on a Desktop edition is a simple one command affair. As of the 7.04 release, the Ubuntu base system includes Tasksel. You can install LAMP using tasksel.
sudo tasksel install lamp-server

I came across this problem this morning, while writing the newly downloaded moblin USB image file. The concept is straight forward, plugin a 1GB+ USB stick into a functioning Linux or Windows box, make sure the stick is not mounted and use dd to write the disk image to the stick. Under OSX however the instructions for unmounting are slightly different, so here are the quick steps:

1. Download the desired .img file
2. Open a Terminal (under Utilities)
3. Run diskutil list to get the current list of devices
4. Insert your flash media
5. Run diskutil list again and determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2)
6. Run diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN (replace N with the disk number from the last command; in the previous example, N would be 2)
7. Execute sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/diskN bs=1m (replace /path/to/downloaded.img with the path where the image file is located.
8. Run diskutil eject /dev/diskN and remove your flash media when the command completes

That should do it…..

If you’re using Ubuntu and have recently upgraded your IpodTouch or Iphone to 2.x firmware, you might be interested in this detailed tutorial. It basically outlines how you can setup syncing under Ubuntu with your 2.x device. The guide assumes that you have jailbroken your ipod/iphone . There is also a nice section for older 1.x devices.

Thanks to Sugar Labs you can now have your Ubuntu 8.10 or Fedora 10 linux distributions with sugar on it…..Shweet :-).  Yep you heard right, go here and grab your OLPC XO inspired 1GB USB stick image and boot all those old PC’s into sugar. According to Walter Bender (the creator of Sugar OS) a new version dubbed Sucrose 0.84 is on its way soon. Complete article (including interview with Mr. Bender) is over at XConomy.

As good as Ubuntu (and linux) are in general, once in a while you just get to a point where you need a reinstall. That’s when the realization kicks in that you’ve got far too many packages installed since the initial Ubuntu install. It’s okay, there is a way out. Make sure you have a USB key.

Run Synaptic package manager. Once inside Synaptic, go to File/Save Markings As menu option and choose a filename and location (USB stick). MAKE SURE YOU ALSO CHECK THE BOX “SAVE FULL STATE, NOT ONLY CHANGES”. This will save a text file that contains every single package installed on your system (through apt system and all it’s variants….manual compile/installs are something else). Now you can go ahead and reinstall the machine and configure your repositories. Once the machine is up and running again, load up Synaptic and go to File/Read Markings and point it at the file you saved on the USB stick and press Apply.

This will start a download process that will set the machine up (as far as installed packages are concerned) just like it used to be. Configurations need to be done manually, but atleast you get all your packages back.

This is also super handy if you’re duping identical systems. Remember that you can not do this to upgrade from one version to another. This is strictly for “Restoring” installed software packages from the same version of Ubuntu.

First we need to create a list of all the installed APT packages and configurations and save them:
sudo dpkg --get-selections > /tmp/dpkglist.txt
sudo debconf-get-selections > /tmp/debconfsel.txt
Copy the files from /tmp to your USB stick or save them somewhere else.

Now reinstall the OS, copy your backed up debconfsel.txt and dpkglist.txt file to your fresh system’s /tmp directory and execute the following:
sudo dselect update
sudo debconf-set-selections < /tmp/debconfsel.txt
sudo dpkg --set-selections < /tmp/dpkglist.txt
sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade
Don’t worry! This method only adds and upgrades packages, it will not remove packages that do not exist in the list.

We also covered aptoncd program which basically does the same thing (it’s a extra install). Last but not least to make a costum Ubuntu install CD/DVD you want to check out our entry on Reconstructor.

If you’ve ever installed Ubuntu and started cursing right after because some piece of software you thought was in there wasn’t, then Super Ubuntu might be for you. It’s basically Ubuntu with a bunch of useful applications pre-installed. You even update through the standard Ubuntu methods. The only downside is that the distro is 32-bit only for now. Below you’ll find a list of pre-installed additional software you get with Super Ubuntu:

• Adobe Reader 8.1.3
• aMule 2.2.2
• aMSN 0.97.2
• Autopackage 1.2.5
• Brasero 0.8.4
• compizconfig-settings-manager (to configure the settings of Compiz and the desktop effects)
• EnvyNG (command line version)
• Firefox 3.0.4
• Furius ISO Mount 0.11.1.0
• GParted 0.3.8
• GIMP 2.6.3
• gufw (GUI for uncomplicated firewall) 0.20.6
• MPlayer (media player)
• NDISwrapper and ndisgtk
• OpenOffice.org 3
• Opera 9.63
• padevchooser (the graphical interface for PulseAudio)
• RealPlayer 11
• SFS Technology 0.3.0.4
• Smart Package Manager 1.1.1
• Skype 2.0.0.72
• StartUp-Manager 1.9.11
• Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.16
• ubuntu-restricted-extras (Java runtime environment, codecs, MP3 support, support for DVD-video, flash player, etc..)
• Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.4
• VLC Media Player 0.9.4
• Wine 1.1.10
• Wine-Doors 0.1.2
• Zero Install 0.3.7

So head on over and grab the ISO file.

Here are some quick CLI commands to get those CD/DVD images mounted under Linux (without having to burn them first).

# ISO
mount -t iso9660 -o loop,user file.iso /path/mount_directory

# NRG
mount -o loop,offset=307200 imagen.nrg /path/mount_directory

Okay, now for a bit of CLI goodness. Here is a quick list of basic apt commands.  Debian and most derivatives (Ubuntu) use these for package maintenance.
#search
apt-cache search packagename

#update/install/remove/upgrade
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install packagename
sudo apt-get remove packagename
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

I’d covered Fedora’s Live USB creator a while back. But for those of you wanting to install other flavours of linux on a USB stick (or a HD even), the process was lengthy and cumbersome. That was before UNetbootin, the Universal Netboot Installer. You see UNetbootin can be run from Linux or Windows and will enable you to install a fully functional linux distro to a USB stick or even a spare partition.

The current version has built-in support for the following distributions:

• Ubuntu (and official derivatives)
  • 6.06 LTS
  • 6.10
  • 7.04
  • 7.10
  • 8.04 LTS
• Debian
  • Stable/Etch
  • Testing/Lenny
  • Unstable/Sid
• Linux Mint
  • 3.1
  • 4.0
  • 5-r1
• openSUSE
  • 10.2
  • 10.3
  • 11.0
  • Factory
• Arch Linux
  • 2007.08
• Damn Small Linux
  • 4.4
• SliTaz
  • Stable
  • Cooking
• Puppy Linux
  • 4.00
• FreeBSD
  • 6.3
  • 7.0
• NetBSD
  • 4.0
• Fedora
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • Rawhide
• PCLinuxOS
  • 2007
  • 2008
• Gentoo
  • 2007.0
  • 2008.0
• Zenwalk
  • 5.2
• Slax
  • 6
• Dreamlinux
  • 3.2
• Elive
  • Development
• CentOS
  • 4
  • 5
• Mandriva
  • 2007.1
  • 2008.0
  • 2008.1
• FaunOS
  • 0.5.4
• Frugalware Linux
  • Stable
  • Testing
  • Current

So go ahead and try some of those acquired flavors of Linux, or that FreeBSD you always wanted to install, but were too scared to. After all it’s only a USB stick, if it screws up just format and reinstall in 5-10 minutes using UNetbootin again.

UNetbootin can also be used to load various system utilities, including:

• Parted Magic, a partition manager that can resize, repair, backup, and restore partitions.
• Super Grub Disk, a boot utility that can restore and repair overwritten and misconfigured GRUB installs or directly boot various operating systems
• Backtrack, a utility used for network analysis and penetration testing.
• Ophcrack, a utility which can recover Windows passwords.
• NTPasswd, a utility which can reset Windows passwords and edit the registry.
• Gujin, a graphical bootloader that can also be used to boot various operating systems and media.
• Smart Boot Manager (SBM), which can boot off CD-ROM and floppy drives on computers with a faulty BIOS.
• FreeDOS, which can run BIOS flash and other legacy DOS utilities.

So have fun and happy installing…..

Well kids are you ready for todays lesson in transcoding DV video. So first you need a decent machine. I’m using a P4 2.4Ghz oldie that has Firewire on-board and am chewing up 50% CPU for NTSC encoding. Then you need to get Ubuntu 8.04 installed. Once that’s done use the following command to install vlc (Video Lan Client):
sudo apt-get install vlc
Then either follow this guide or if you’re using 8.04 (Hardy Heron) ONLY, use the following command to add Medibuntu to your repository sources.list:
sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list
followed by
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update
to add the GPG key for Medibuntu Repository. You may be asked to accept this package even though it cannot be authenticated. This is normal; typing “Yes” means you trust Medibuntu.
Now do the following commands to get libdvdcss and other codecs installed on your machine:
sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2
sudo apt-get install w32codecs (for i386 architecture) OR
sudo apt-get install w64codecs (for amd64 architecture)
Now that we have all the goodies installed and ready to go you can go ahead and connect that DV camera to your Ubuntu box using Firewire. Make sure it’s in Camera mode (NOT VCR) and open up a command line and type in the following command to get the encoder setup:
sudo -i (This will put you in superuser mode.....ie: root account)
cat /dev/dv1394/0 | vlc - :demux=rawdv -I dummy --sout '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,vb=1024,acodec=mpga,ab=192,scale=1,width=720,height=480}:duplicate{dst=std{access=udp,mux=ts,dst=IPAddressofDestinationMachine:PortNumber}}'
You could also run the above command from your user account by adding sudo infront of it and supply your password followed by Enter key.

The above command (in case you’re wondering) will literally open device zero on the firewire chain and redirect it’s raw output into the VLC program. VLC is told to accept input from a pipe in rawdv format and to transcode it to mpeg4 Video @ 1Mb/s with mpeg1-layer3 audio @ 192 Kb/s.

Once the above command is running you’ll need to go to your receiving machine (the machine who’s IP you supplied in the command above), run VLC and from the File menu choose “Open Network Stream” and go with the default UDP/RTP on port 1234 (or whatever port you chose in the encoder command line).

Another neat thing you can do with your new found opensource goody bag is capture DV from your camera/settop box and save it in mpeg4 format for archival purposes (or mpeg2 for editing maybe). I’m not gonna get into the details, but assuming you’ve done the above commands, skip the encoder command and issue the following command to get your DV stream saved:
sudo -i
cat /dev/dv1394/0 | ffmpeg -f dv -i - -f mp4 -s 720x480 -vcodec mpeg4 -acodec aac -ab 128 -ar 44100 -deinterlace -b 3000k -y yourfilename.mp4
This command will take rawdv from the camera, pass it to ffmpeg, which will chew on it and spit it out as mpeg4 video @ 3Mb/s with AAC audio @ 128Kb/s into a file named yourfilename.mp4 (if the file exists it will overwrite it). Stopping is accomplished by CTRL-C. More info on this command can be found on ffmpeg’s man page.

Have Fun….

These should probably also be installed under other linux distros (might already be). But for the sake of completeness here they are:

1) denyhosts: great little package that’s already 98% configured after apt-get install process. It runs as a daemon and monitors /var/log/auth.log file for unsuccessful ssh logins and takes measures to ban the originating IP in /etc/hosts.deny. The cool part is that it does not need access to firewall or anything. Config file is /etc/denyhosts.conf and is pretty self explanatory. Ubuntu package is called “denyhosts” and needs python to work.

2) chkrootkit: another little gem that you install via apt-get install process. Ubuntu package is called “chkrootkit”. After install do “man chkrootkit” for more info, but the gist of it is that when run from command line it uses it’s own utils (located in /usr/lib/chkrootkit) to see if the system is infected.

3) rkhunter: this util is really a giant shell script, but it’s really nice and easy to use. Again use Ubuntu package name “rkhunter” to install it. It’s config file goes into /etc/rkhunter.conf and is pretty nicely setup by default. Next run “rkhunter –update” to update the discription/signature files from their website, then run “rkhunter –propupd” to grab a snapshot of the various files installed on your system. This will be used later, every time you run the command to see if anything has been changed by trojans/rootkits. Finally run “rkhunter –check” to actually run all the tests and see if you’re good to go. At the end if there are warnings check /var/log/rkhunter.log for a list of explanations about those warnings (suspicious filenames, hidden file locations, etc.)

4) ufw: The netfilter (firewall) interface for the rest of us. If you’re like me too dense to remember the iptables lingo, this might be for you. See this page for a good introduction.

Have fun and remember kids Vitamin U(buntu) is good for you.