Posts Tagged ‘fedora’

How to configure static DNS and Search domain for Redhat / CentOS and Redhat Linux

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2021

Fedora-Red-Hat-and-CentOS-fix-DNS-resolv-conf-automatically-deleted-records
In latest Redhat based OS-es Fedora / CentOS / Redhat etc. just like on many other Linux distributions, we have /etc/resolv.conf being overwritten by NetworkManager and / or systemd configurations setup which since some time has been introduced to be a "more sophisticated" (default)  so the file is being written by Network Manager / dhcp or systemd config. Though the idea is good, having other programs modify /etc/resolv.conf is a real pain in the ass especially as you end up with an empty file because some service has overwritten what you have placed in the file and the DNS records and Search Domain is deleted forever. If you're not aware of this "new cool" linux feature you might first think that it was a bug that has ovewritten /etc/resolv.conf but ok guys as Bill Gates loved to say "this is not a bug it is a feature", so any attemps you make to manually change /etc/resolv.conf will be soon gone 🙂

This is pretty annoying for old school sysadmins which like to just set the necessery Domain name server resolving

search Subdomain.SearchDomain.Com
nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
nameserver yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy


However as said Nowdays if you just place the desired config with in /etc/resolv.conf on next Server reboot or Network restart (or next fetch of DHCP if the ethernet interface IPs are being obtained via DHCP protocol) you will end up in a situation with an empty /etc/resolv.conf  with one commented line reading:

[root@redhat ~]# cat /etc/resolv.conf
# Generated by NetworkManager

To make the DNS and Search Domain be always presented on any network restart or reboot on the server hence you will need to define  DNS1 DNS2 DNS3 etc. and SEARCH variable inside the network configuration files for Bridge or Network interfaces located in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-br0 /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eno1np0 etc.  that will automatically append above search / nameserver fields in /etc/resolv.conf on any NetworkManager or system restart.
Below is example with the variables added to a Network bridge configuration on Redhat 8.3 (Ootpa):

[root@redhat ~]# cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-br0
STP=yes
BRIDGING_OPTS=priority=32768
TYPE=Bridge
PROXY_METHOD=none
BROWSER_ONLY=no
BOOTPROTO=none
DEFROUTE=yes
IPV4_FAILURE_FATAL=no
IPV6INIT=yes
IPV6_AUTOCONF=yes
IPV6_DEFROUTE=yes
IPV6_FAILURE_FATAL=no
IPV6_ADDR_GEN_MODE=stable-privacy
NAME=br0
UUID=f87e54a8-0fc4-4197-8ccc-0d8a671f30d0
DEVICE=br0
ONBOOT=yes
IPADDR=10.10.51.16
PREFIX=26
GATEWAY=10.10.51.1

DNS1="172.80.11.2"
DNS2="172.80.11.3"
DNS3="172.80.11.4"
SEARCH="sub.search-domain.com"


To test the configuration does append proper records into /etc/resolv.conf on Network restart  or /sbin/reboot reload the network.

[root@redhat ~]# systemctl restart NetworkManager


The result is you should have a good looking resolv.conf as so

[root@redhat ~]#  cat /etc/resolv.conf
# Generated by NetworkManager
search sub.search-domain.com
nameserver 172.20.88.2
nameserver 172.20.88.3
nameserver 172.20.88.4

 

How to Import Remove List archive signing keys on CentOS / RHEL / Fedora RPM based Linux distributions

Wednesday, April 8th, 2020

how-to-import-remove-list-archiving-signing-keys-on-CentOS-RHEL-Fedora-rpm-based-Linux-distros-package
If you  plan to build and distribute  own RPMs securely, it is strongly recommended that all custom RPMs are signed using GNU Privacy Guard (GPG). Generating GPG keys and building GPG-signed packages matching it.
Hence, If you have to deal with some of the RPM based package management Linux distribution like CentOS / RHEL / Fedora etc. you will sooner or later end up in a situation where some of the archive signing keys for a package provided by some of the repositories is missing or it is not matching the keys provided for the RPM repo.

As a result you will be unable to install some package like lets say zabbix-sender or you won't be able to update a certain package to the latest available version, because the Archive Signing key is not found.
The usual naming for a RPM file with a GPG key in is YOUR-RPM-GPG-KEY.

A typical PGP Public key file content looks something like this:
 

—–BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–

Version: GnuPG v1.0.0 (GNU/Linux)

Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org

mQGiBDfqVEqRBADBKr3Bl6PO8BQ0H8sJoD6p9U7Yyl7pjtZqioviPwXP+DCWd4u8

HQzcxAZ57m8ssA1LK1Fx93coJhDzM130+p5BG9mYSPShLabR3N1KXdXAYYcowTOM

GxdwYRGr1Spw8QydLhjVfU1VSl4xt6bupPbFJbyjkg5Z3P7BlUOUJmrx3wCgobNV

EDGaWYJcch5z5B1of/41G8kEAKii6q7Gu/vhXXnLS6m15oNnPVybyngiw/23dKjS

ti/PYrrL2J11P2ed0x7zm8v3gLrY0cue1iSba+8glY+p31ZPOr5ogaJw7ZARgoS8

BwjyRymXQp+8Dete0TELKOL2/itDOPGHW07SsVWOR6cmX4VlRRcWB5KejaNvdrE5

4XFtOd04NMgWI63uqZc4zkRa+kwEZtmbz3tHSdWCCE+Y7YVP6IUf/w6YPQFQriWY

FiA6fD10eB+BlIUqIw80EqjsBKmCwvKkn4jg8kibUgj4/TzQSx77uYokw1EqQ2wk

OZoaEtcubsNMquuLCMWijYhGBBgRAgAGBQI36lRyAAoJECGRgM3bQqYOhyYAnj7h

VDY/FJAGqmtZpwVp9IlitW5tAJ4xQApr/jNFZCTksnI+4O1765F7tA==

=3AHZ

—–END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–

 

The usual naming for a RPM file with a GPG key in is YOUR-RPM-GPG-KEY
 

1. List RPM gpg keys installed on system

To list all the installed RPM gpg keys on the system do:

rpm -q gpg-pubkey


To get a list of the number of installed keys with verbose info with key description::

rpm -qa gpg-pubkey –qf "%{version}-%{release} %{summary}\n"|wc -l

 rpm -qa gpg-pubkey –qf "%{version}-%{release} %{summary}\n"
fdb19c98-56fd6333 gpg(Fedora 25 Primary (25) <fedora-25-primary@fedoraproject.org>)
7fac5991-4615767f gpg(Google, Inc. Linux Package Signing Key <linux-packages-keymaster@google.com>)
64dab85d-57d33e22 gpg(Fedora 26 Primary (26) <fedora-26-primary@fedoraproject.org>)
fa7a179a-562bcd6e gpg(RPM Fusion nonfree repository for Fedora (25) <rpmfusion-buildsys@lists.rpmfusion.org>)
6806a9cb-562bce39 gpg(RPM Fusion free repository for Fedora (25) <rpmfusion-buildsys@lists.rpmfusion.org>)
d38b4796-570c8cd3 gpg(Google Inc. (Linux Packages Signing Authority) <linux-packages-keymaster@google.com>)

 

[root@host ~:]# rpm -q gpg-pubkey –qf '%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}\t%{SUMMARY}\n'
gpg-pubkey-f4a80eb5-53a7ff4b    gpg(CentOS-7 Key (CentOS 7 Official Signing Key) )
gpg-pubkey-b6792c39-53c4fbdd    gpg(CentOS-7 Debug (CentOS-7 Debuginfo RPMS) )
gpg-pubkey-8fae34bd-538f1e51    gpg(CentOS-7 Testing (CentOS 7 Testing content) )

To list all OS installed gpg keys do:

[user@host ~:]$ $ rpm -qa | grep -i gpg
gpg-pubkey-db42a60e-37ea5438


2. Import RPM-GPG-KEY


A new key be it official archive keys issued from Fedora or a custom own build RPM package can be imported Redhat Package Manager like so:

[root@host ~:]# rpm –import RPM-GPG-KEY


It is possible to also import multiple GPG signature keys, for example on CentOS the usual path containg keys is /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/ to import all of the contained files there:

[root@host ~:]# rpm –import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/*


3. Check package with imported gpg arch key


Once the RPM-GPG-KEY is imported you can compare whether a RPM package matches with the key signature.

[root@host ~:]# rpm –checksig package-1.3-3.src.rpm

[root@host ~:]# rpm –checksig xtoolwait-1.3-3.src.rpm
package-1.3-3.src.rpm: (sha1) dsa sha1 md5 gpg OK


4. Remove RPM installed arch key


If you have installed some gpg arch. key by mistake and you need to remove it:

[root@host ~:]#rpm -e gpg-pubkey-b6792c39-53c4fbdd


To make sure it is remove do a Listing once again signing archive keys, it should not show anymore:

[root@host ~:]# rpm -q gpg-pubkey –qf '%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}\t%{SUMMARY}\n'
gpg-pubkey-f4a80eb5-53a7ff4b    gpg(CentOS-7 Key (CentOS 7 Official Signing Key) )
gpg-pubkey-8fae34bd-538f1e51    gpg(CentOS-7 Testing (CentOS 7 Testing content) )

Howto Pass SSH traffic through a Secured Corporate Proxy server with corkscrew, using sshd as a standalone proxy service with no proxy installed on remote Linux server or VPS

Tuesday, November 19th, 2019

howto pass ssh traffic through proxy to remote server use remote machine as a proxy for connecting to the Internet

Working in the big bad corporate world (being employed in  any of the Fortune 500) companies, especially in an IT delivery company is a nasty thing in terms of User Personal Data Privacy because usually when employeed in any of a corporation, the company ships you with a personal Computer with some kind of pre-installed OS (most often this is Windows) and the computer is not a standalone one but joined in Active Directory (AD) belonging to Windows Domain and centrally administered by whoever.

As part of the default deplyed configuration in this pre-installed OS and software is that part or all your network traffic and files is being monitored in some kind of manner as your pre-installed Windows or Linux notebook given by the Corporation is having a set of standard software running in the background, and even though you have Windows Administrator there are many things you have zero control or even if you have changed it once the Domain Policy is triggered your custom made changes / Installed Programs that happen to be against the company policy are being automatically deleted, any registry changes made are being rewinded etc. Sometimes even by trying to manually clean up your PC from the corporate crapware,  you might breaks access to the corporate DMZ firewalled network. A common way to secure their employee PC data large companies have a Network seperation, your PC when not connected to the Corporate VPN is having a certain IP configuration and once connected to the Demilitarized Zone VPN those configuration changes and the PC have access to internal company infrastructure servers / router / switches / firewalls / SANs etc. Access to corporate Infrastructure is handled via crypted VPN clinet such as Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client which is perhaps one of the most used ones out there.

Part of the common software installed to Monitor your PC for threats / viruses / trojans among which is MCafee / EMET (Enhandced Mitigation Experience Toolkit) the PC is often prebundled with some kind of anti-malware (crapware) :). But the tip of the iceberg on user surveillance where most of surveillance happens is the default installed proxy on the PC which usually does keep track of all your remote accessed HTTP Website URLs accessed in plain text – traffic flowing on Port 80 and crypted one on standard (SSL) Port 443. This Web Traffic is handled by the Central Corporate proxy that is being deployed via some kind of Domain policy, every time the Computer joins the Windows domain. 

This of course is a terrible thing for your Browsing security and together with the good security practice to run your browser in Incognito mode, which makes all your browsing activity such as access URLs History or Saved Cookies data to be cleared up on a Browser close it is important to make sure you run your own personal traffic via a separate browser which you will use only for your own concern browsing such as Accessing your Bank Money Accounts to check your Monthly Sallary / Purchase things online via Amazon.com / Ebay.com, whether all of the rest traffic company related is trafficed via the default set corporate central proxy.
This is relatively easy sometimes in companies, where security is not of a top concern but in corporations with tightened security accessing remote proxy, or accessing even common daily news and Public Email websites or social media sites  Gmail.com / Twitter / Youtube will be filtered so the only way to reach them will be via some kind of Proxy and often this proxy is the only way out to the Free world from the corporate jail.

Here is where the good old SSH comes as a saving grace as it turns out SSH traffic could be trafficed over a proxy. In below article I will give you a short insight on how Proxy through SSH could be achieved to Secure your dailty web traffic and use SSH to reach your own server on the Internet as well as how you can copy securely data via SSH through corporate Proxy. 
 

1. How to view your corporate used (default) proxy / Check Proxy.pac file definitions

 

To get an idea what is the used proxy on your Corporate PC (as most corporate employee given notebooks are running some kind of M$ Windows)  you can go to:

Windows Control Panel -> Internet Options -> Connections -> Lan Settings


internet-properties-microsoft-windows-screenshot

Under the field Proxy server (check out the Proxy configured Address and Port number )

local-area-network-lan-settings-screenshot-windows-1
 

Having that as browsers venerate the so-called Proxy.pac file, to be rawly aware on some general Company Proxy configured definitions you can access in a browser the proxy itself fething the proxy.pac file for example.

 

http://your-corporate-firewall-rpoxy-url:8080/proxy.pac

 

This is helpful as some companies Proxies have some proxy rules that reveal some things about its Internet architecture and even some have some badly configured proxy.pac files which could be used to fool the proxy under some circumstances 🙂
 

2. Few of the reasons corporations proxy all their employee's work PC web traffic

 

The corporate proxying of traffic has a number of goals, some of which are good hearted and others are for mostly spying on the users.

 

1. Protect Corporate Employees from malicious Viruses / Trojans Horses / Malware / Badware / Whatever ware – EXCELLENT
2. Prevent users from acessing a set of sources that due to the corporate policy are considered harmful (e.g. certain addresses 
of information or disinformation of competitors, any Internet source that might preach against the corporation, hacking ralated websites etc.) – NOT GOOD (for the employee / user) and GOOD for the company
3.Spy on the users activity and be able to have evidence against the employee in case he decided to do anything harmful to the company evidences from proxy could even later be used in court if some kind of corpoate infringment occurs due to misbehave of the employee. – PERFECT FOR COMPANY and Complete breach of User privacy and IMHO totally against European Union privacy legislation such as GDRP
4. In companies that are into the field of Aritificial Intelligence / Users behavior could even be used to advance Self-learning bots and mechanisms – NASTY ! YAECKES

 

3. Run SSH Socks proxy to remote SSHd server running on common SSL 443 port

 

Luckily sysadmins who were ordered the big bosses to sniff on your Web behaviour and preferences could be outsmarted with some hacks.

To protect your Browsing behaviours and Secure your privacy perhaps the best option is to use the Old but gold practice o Securing your Networkf traffic using SSH Over Proxy and SSH Dynamic tunnel as a Proxy as explained in my previous article here.

how-to-use-sshd-server-as-a-proxy-without-a-real-proxy-ssh-socks5_proxy_linux
 

In short the quest way to have your free of charge SOCKS  Remote proxy to your Home based Linux installed OS server / VPN with a Public Internet address is to use ssh as so:

 

ssh -D 3128 UserName@IP-of-Remote-SSHD-Host -p 443

 

This will start the SOCKS Proxy tunnel from Corporate Work PC to your Own Home brew server.

For some convenience it is useful to set up an .alias (for cygwin) / linux users in .bashrc file:

 

alias proxy='ssh -D 3128 UserName@IP-of-Remote-SSHD-Host -p 443';

 

To start using the Proxy from browser, I use a plugin called FoxyProxy in Chrome and Firefox browsers
set-up to connect to localhost – 127.0.0.1:3128 for All Protocols as a SOCKs v5 Proxy.

The sshd Socks proxy can be used for multiple others for example, using it you can also pass on traffic from Mail client such as Thunderbird to your Email server if you're behind a firewall prohibiting access to the common POP3 port 110 or IMAP port TCP 143. 

4. How to access SSH through Proxy using jumphost SSH hop


If you're like me and you have on your Home Linux machine only one Internet address and you have already setupped an SSL enabled service (lets say Webmail) to listen to that Public Internet IP and you don't have the possibility to run another instance of /usr/bin/sshd on port 443 via configuration or manually one time by issuing:

 

/usr/sbin/sshd -p 443

 

Then you can use another ssh another Linux server as a jump host to your own home Linux sshd server. This can be done even by purchasing a cheap VPS server for lets say 3 dollars month etc. or even better if you have a friend with another Linux home server, you can ask him to run you sshd on TCP port 443 and add you an ssh account.
Once you have the second Linux machine as JumpHost to reach out to your own machine use:

 

ssh -J Your-User@Your-jump-host.com:443 hipo@your-home-server.com -v

 

To easify this a bit long line it is handy to use some kind of alias like:

 

alias sshhome='ssh -J Your-User@Your-jump-host.com:443 hipo@your-home-server.com -v'

 

The advantage here is just by issuing this sshd tunnel and keeping it open in a terminal or setting it up as Plink Putty tunnel you have all your Web Traffic Secured
between your Work Corporate PC and your Home Brew Server, keeping the curious eyes of your Company Security Officers from your own Web traffic, hence
separating the corporate privacy from your own personal privacy. Using the just established own SSH Proxy Tunnel to home for your non-work stuff browsing habits
from the corporate systems which are accessed by switching with a button click in FoxyProxy to default proxy settings.
 

5. How to get around paranoid corporate setup where only remote access to Corporate proxy on TCP Port 80 and TCP 443 is available in Browser only

 

Using straight ssh and to create Proxy will work in most of the cases but it requires SSH access to your remote SSH running server / VPS on TCP Port 22, however under some Fort-Nox like financial involved institutions and companies for the sake of tightened security, it is common that all Outbound TCP Ports are prohibited except TCP Port 80 and SSL 443 as prior said, so what can you do then to get around this badful firewall and access the Internet via your own server Proxy? 
The hack to run SSH server either on tcp port 80 or tcp port 443 on remote Host and use 443 / 80 to acess SSHD should work, but then even for the most paranoid corporations the ones who are PCI Compliant – PCI stands for (Payment Card Industry), e.g. works with Debit and Credit Card data etc, accessing even 80 or 443  ports with something like telnet client or netcat will be impossible. 
Once connected to the corporate VPN,  this 2 two ports firewall exceptions will be only accessible via the Corporate Proxy server defined in a Web Browser (Firefox / IE / Chrome etc.) as prior explained in article.

The remedy here is to use a 3rd party tools such as httptunnel or corkscrew that  are able to TUNNEL SSH TRAFFIC VIA CORPORATE PROXY SERVER and access your own resource out of the DMZ.

Both httptunnel and corkscrew are installable both on most Linux distros or for Windows users via CygWin for those who use MobaXterm.

Just to give you better idea on what corkscrew and (hts) httptunnel does, here is Debian packages descriptions.

# apt-cache show​ corkscrew
" corkscrew is a simple tool to tunnel TCP connections through an HTTP
 proxy supporting the CONNECT method. It reads stdin and writes to
 stdout during the connection, just like netcat.
 .
 It can be used for instance to connect to an SSH server running on
 a remote 443 port through a strict HTTPS proxy.
"

 

# apt-cache show httptunnel|grep -i description -A 7
Description-en: Tunnels a data stream in HTTP requests
 Creates a bidirectional virtual data stream tunnelled in
 HTTP requests. The requests can be sent via a HTTP proxy
 if so desired.
 .
 This can be useful for users behind restrictive firewalls. If WWW
 access is allowed through a HTTP proxy, it's possible to use
 httptunnel and, say, telnet or PPP to connect to a computer

Description-md5: ed96b7d53407ae311a6c5ef2eb229c3f
Homepage: http://www.nocrew.org/software/httptunnel.html
Tag: implemented-in::c, interface::commandline, interface::daemon,
 network::client, network::server, network::vpn, protocol::http,
 role::program, suite::gnu, use::routing
Section: net
Priority: optional
Filename: pool/main/h/httptunnel/httptunnel_3.3+dfsg-4_amd64.deb

Windows cygwin users can install the tools with:
 

apt-cyg install –yes corkscrew httptunnel


Linux users respectively with:

apt-get install –yes corkscrew httptunnel

or 

yum install -y corkscrew httptunnel

 

You will then need to have the following configuration in your user home directory $HOME/.ssh/config file
 

Host host-addrs-of-remote-home-ssh-server.com
ProxyCommand /usr/bin/corkscrew your-corporate-firewall-rpoxy-url 8080 %h %p

 

howto-transfer-ssh-traffic-over-proxy

Picture Copyright by Daniel Haxx

The best picture on how ssh traffic is proxied is the one found on Daniel Haxx's website which is a great quick tutorial which originally helped to get the idea of how corkscrew works in proxying traffic I warmly recommend you take a quick look at his SSH Through or over Proxy article.

Host-addrs-of-remote-home-ssh-server.com could be also and IP if you don't have your own domain name in case if using via some cheap VPN Linux server with SSH, or alternatively
if you don't want to spend money on buying domain for SSH server (assuming you don't have such yet) you can use Dyn DNS or NoIP.

Another thing is to setup the proper http_proxy / https_proxy / ftp_proxy variable exports in $HOME/.bashrc in my setup I have the following:
 

export ftp_proxy="http://your-corporate-firewall-rpoxy-url:8080"
export https_proxy="https://your-corporate-firewall-rpoxy-url:8080"
export http_proxy="http://your-corporate-firewall-rpoxy-url:8080"
export HTTP_PROXY="http://your-corporate-firewall-rpoxy-url:8080"
export HTTPS_PROXY="http://your-corporate-firewall-rpoxy-url:8080"


 

6. How to Transfer Files / Data via SSH Protocol through  Proxy with SCP and SFTP


Next logical question is how to Transfer your own personal encrypted files (that contains no corporate sensitive information) between your Work laptop and home brew Linux ssh server or cheap VPN.

It took me quite a lot of try-outs until finally I got it how Secure Copy (scp) command can be used toto transfer files between my Work Computer and my Home brew server using JumpHost, here is how:
 

scp -o 'ProxyJump Username@Jumpt-Host-or-IP.com:443' ~/file-or-files-to-copy* Username@home-ssh-server.com:/path/where/to/copy/files


I love using sftp (Secure FTP) command Linux client to copy files and rarely use scp so I have a lot of try-outs to connect interacitvely via the Corporate Proxy server over a Jump-Host:443 to my Destination home machine, 

 

I've tried using netcat as it was pointed in many articles online, like so to traffic my sftp traffic via my localhost binded SSH Socks proxy on :3128 together with netcat as shown in article prior example, using following line:
 

sftp -oProxyCommand='/bin/nc -X connect -x 127.0.0.1:3128 %h %p' Username@home-ssh-server.com 22

 

Also tried proxy connect like this:

 

sftp -o ProxyCommand="proxy-connect -h localhost -p 3128 %h %p" Username@home-ssh-server.com

 

Moreover, tried to use the ssh  command (-s) argument capability to invoke SSH protocol subsystem feature which is used to facilitiate use of SSH secure transport for other application
 

ssh -v -J hipo@Jump-Host:443 -s sftp root@home-ssh-server.com -v

open failed: administratively prohibited: open failed

 

Finally decided to give a try to the same options arguments as in scp and thanks God it worked and I can even access via the Corporate Proxy through the Jump Host SSH interactively via Secure FTP 🙂

!! THE FINAL WORKING SFTP THROUGH PROXY VIA SSH JUMPHOST !!
 

sftp -o 'ProxyJump Username@Jumpt-Host-or-IP.com:443' Username@home-ssh-server.com


To save time from typing this long line every time, I've setup the following alias to ~/.bashrc
 

alias sftphome='sftp -o 'ProxyJump Username@Jumpt-Host-or-IP.com:443' Username@home-ssh-server.com'

 

Conclusion

Of course using own Proxy via your Home brew SSH Machine as well as transferring your data securely from your Work PC (notebook) to Home does not completely make you Surveillance free, as the Corporate Windows installed OS image is perhaps prebundled with its own integrated Keylogger as well as the Windows Domain administrators have certainly access to connect to your PC and run various commands, so this kind of Security is just an attempt to make company has less control and know less on your browsing habits and the best solution where possible to secure your privacy and separate your Personal Space form Work space by using a second computer (if having the ability to work from home) with a KVM Switch device and switch over your Work PC and Home PC via it or in some cases (where companies) allows it, setup something like VNC server (TightVNC / RealVNC) on work PC and leave it all time running in office and connect remotely with vncviewer from your own controlled secured computer.

In article I've explained shortly common scenario found in corporate Work computers proxy setup, designed to Surveil all your move, mentioned few common softwares running by default to protect from Viruses and aimed to Protect user from malicious hacking tools, explained how to view your work notebook configured Proxy, shortly mentioned on Proxy.pac and hinted how to view proxy.pac config as well as gave few of the reasons why all web traffic is being routed over central proxy.

That's all folks, Enjoy the Freedom to be less surveilled !

Install TeamViewer on latest Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS Linux quick how to

Tuesday, October 31st, 2017

teamviewer-howto-install-on-gnu-linux-teamviewer-and-tux-penguin-logo

If you're a sysadmin who uses GNU / Linux as a Desktop as me you will certainly need to have TeamViewer installed and ready for use on your Linux desktop.

Even though TeamViewer is a proprietary application and I prefer not to use it I'm forced to have it installed because of every now and then a friend or customer would require you to login remotely to his Windows server and clean up the system either from spyware or viruses or just deploy some new software.

Nowdays most of people are running 64 bit ( amd64 ) built operating system and the problem with TeamViewer on Linux 64bit is that it doesn't have an actual full featured 64 port of the application but only have a 32 bits install, besides that big part of components of TeamViewer are running using wine windows emulation and hencing making it work on Linux is sometimes not so trivial as we might have desired.

Because TeamViewer is a 32 bit application, it has a number of dependency libraries that are 32 bit in Linux that's the so called (i386) built libraries (packages).

Hence to make TeamViewer work on modern GNU / Linux operating systems such as Debian / Ubuntu / Mint Linux / Fedora / CentOS etc. it is necessery to have some i386 libraries and other 32 bit things pre-installed and only then you can have a working copy of teamviewer on your Linux.

1. Installing i386 applications required for TeamViewer operation

– On Debian / Ubuntu / Kubuntu / Xubuntu Linux run below commands:

First we need to add the i386 architecture to be supported by Linux

 

dpkg –add-architecture i386
apt update

 

Then on Debian and other deb based Linux we need to install following libraries
 

# apt install libjpeg62-turbo:i386 wget gdebi-core
 

 


2. Download latest teamviewer version from TeamViewer website

– On Debian, Ubuntu and other deb based Linux distros.

Download latest teamviewer version and install it:

 

# wget https://download.teamviewer.com/download/teamviewer_i386.deb

 

 

 

On CentOS, Fedora, OpenSuSE other RPM based distros:

Download the Teamviewer package and package signature using wget

 

# wget https://download.teamviewer.com/download/linux/signature/TeamViewer2017.asc
# wget https://download.teamviewer.com/download/teamviewer.i686.rpm


 

 

3. Insteall teamviewer with gdebi (Simple Tool to install deb files)

 

# gdebi teamviewer_i386.deb


Remote control and meeting solution.
 TeamViewer provides easy, fast and secure remote access and meeting solutions
 to Linux, Windows PCs, Apple PCs and various other platforms,
 including Android and iPhone.
 .
 TeamViewer is free for personal use.
 You can use TeamViewer completely free of charge to access your private
 computers or to help your friends with their computer problems.
 .
 To buy a license for commercial use, please visit http://www.teamviewer.com
 .
 This package contains Free Software components.
 For details, see /opt/teamviewer/doc/license_foss.txt
Do you want to install the software package? [y/N]:y

 

On Fedora, CentOS, SuSE RPM based ones:

 

# rpm –import TeamViewer_Linux_PubKey.asc

 

 

# rpm -i teamviewer_12.0.xxxxx.i686.rpm

 

or if you face some failed dependencies you better use zypper that will download any missing teamviewer dependencies.

 

# zypper install teamviewer_12.0.xxxxx.i686.rpm

 

 

 

4. Start Teamviewer

 

 

teamviewer-running-on-linux-screenshot

 

linux:~$ teamviewer
Init…
CheckCPU: SSE2 support: yes
XRandRWait: No value set. Using default.
XRandRWait: Started by user.
Checking setup…
wine: configuration in '/home/hipo/.local/share/teamviewer12' has been updated.
Launching TeamViewer …
Launching TeamViewer GUI …

 

What is this directory /run/user/1000 on Debian and Fedora GNU / Linux?

Monday, October 23rd, 2017

what-is-this-folder-directory-run-user-1000-in-debian-debianfedoraubuntu-linux

So what are these /run/user/1000, /run/user/0, /run/user109, /run/user/1000 showing in my df -h I'm I hacked or what?

root@noah:~# df -h|grep -i tmpfs
tmpfs 201M 22M 179M 11% /run
tmpfs 1001M 0 1001M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5,0M 4,0K 5,0M 1% /run/lock
tmpfs 1001M 0 1001M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs 201M 0 201M 0% /run/user/0
tmpfs 201M 36K 201M 1% /run/user/1000
tmpfs 201M 16K 201M 1% /run/user/109

 

/run/user/$uid is created by pam_systemd and used for storing files used by running processes for that
user. These might be things such as your keyring daemon, pulseaudio, etc.

Prior to systemd, these applications typically stored their files in /tmp. They couldn't use a location in
/home/$user as home directories are often mounted over network filesystems, and these files should not be
shared among hosts. /tmp was the only location specified by the FHS which is local, and writable by all
users.

However storing all these files in /tmp is problematic as /tmp is writable by everyone, and while you can
change the ownership & mode on the files being created, it's more difficult to work with.

However storing all these files in /tmp is problematic as /tmp is writable by everyone, and while you can
change the ownership & mode on the files being created, it's more difficult to work with.

So systemd came along and created /run/user/$uid.
This directory is local to the system and only
accessible by the target user. So applications looking to store their files locally no longer have to
worry about access control.

It also keeps things nice and organized. When a user logs out, and no active sessions remain, pam_systemd will wipe the /run/user/$uid directory out. With various files scattered around /tmp, you couldn't dothis.

Should mention that it is called $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, documented at 8 standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.h‌​tml.

What if: I have started a "background" computation process with nohup, and it saves its intermediate results/data in a temp file. Can I count on it not being wiped while the process is running, or it will be wiped, and the process started with nohup will loose its data? 

It's unlikely to be wiped, but /run/user is a tmpfs filesystem in debian, ubuntu and fedora, so it'll be limited.

What if the pidfile is a service running under root.
Should it's PID go under /var/run or /var/run/user/0 ?

If since there is no active sessions will it be removed? 

This directory contains system information data describing the system since it was booted.
Files under this directory must be cleared (removed or truncated as appropriate) at the beginning of the boot process.

The purposes of this directory were once served by /var/run. In general, programs may continue to use /var/run to fulfill the requirements set out for /run for the purposes of backwards
compatibility.

Programs which have migrated to use /run should cease their usage of /var/runexcept as noted in the section on /var/run.

Programs may have a subdirectory of /run; this is encouraged for programs that use more than one run-time file.

Users may also have a subdirectory of /run, although care must be taken to appropriately limit access rights to prevent unauthorized use of /run itself and other subdirectories.

In the case of the /run/user directory, is used by the different user services, like dconf, pulse,systemd, etc. that needs a place for their lock files and sockets. There are as many directories as
different users UID's are logged in the system.

How to Increase virtualbox Linux install machine VM .VDI hard disk size to free space on root partition – Move /usr to a new partition

Tuesday, October 10th, 2017

extend-vdi-virtual-machine-partition-with-virtualbox-howto-virtualbox-logo
 

How to Increse Hard Disk size of VirtualBox Virtual Machine .VDI file to Free Space on root Partition or Howto move /usr large partition to separate new partition?


I just wondered how to increase hard disk size of Virtualbox Virtual Machine image .VDI, because for some stupid reason I've created my initial hard disk size for Linux partition to be the default 10 Gigabytes.

The problem is the packages I need to have installed on the Virtual Machine which will be a testbed for future tests of a production website applications are taking up too much space, once installed so I'm left with no space
in /var/lib/mysql for the database import. So what can I do in that case is to simply free up disk space or Merge ROOT partition with another partition.

Since merging the partition is not a trivial job and would require me to have installable CD with the Linux distro (in my case that's Debian Linux) or have a bootable USB flash drive, I preferred second approach to problem e.g. to free up disk space on ROOT partition by creating a second partition and move the /usr folder to reside there.

Before that it is of course necessery to  have extended the .VDI file using VirtualBox, so more space than the default 10GB preconfigured are available, this is easily done on Windows OS as, VBox is provided with GUI clickable option to do it, but for who knows what reason that is not the case with Linux, so Linux users only option to increase VDI file is to manually run command part of the virtualbox package, that is not a hard task really but it requires some typing and basic knowledge on how to run commands in terminal.


To .VDI resize (extend), we first go to default location where VirtualBox stores its image .VDI files (by default as of moment of writting this article – this is ~/"VrtualBox VMs"  (or home directory of logged in user dir VirtualBox VMs), the command to use is VBoxManage

 

root@jericho:/home/hipo# cd VirtualBox VMs/
root@jericho:/home/hipo/VirtualBox VMs# ls
Debian 6  Debian 9  Windows 10
root@jericho:/home/hipo/VirtualBox VMs# cd Debian 6/
r
oot@jericho:/home/hipo/VirtualBox VMs/Debian 6# ls
Debian 6.vbox  Debian 6.vbox-prev  Debian 6.vdi  Logs  NewVirtualDisk1.vdi  Snapshots

root@jericho:/home/hipo/VirtualBox VMs/Debian 6# VBoxManage modifyhd Debian 6.vdi –resize 20000
0%…10%…20%…30%…40%…50%…60%…70%…80%…90%…100%
root@jericho:/home/hipo/VirtualBox VMs/Debian 6#


 

Above command does resize the 10GB default created partition for Linux, where I have installed Linux which was 99% full of data, because of the many packages I installed to 20GB size, to make it bigger just use the respective size, be it 30000 (for 30GB) or 100000 (for 100GB) etc.

Even though in this example VBoxManage virtual partition resize command was done for GNU / Linux Operating System, it can be done for any other Operating as well to resize the size of the Virtual .VDI file (Virtual Machine) partition, be it Windows 7 / 8 / 10 or the rest of Free Operating systems FreeBSD / OpenBSD / BSD that are installed in a VM etc.

Next Launch the Virtual Machine with VBox Server client Program and install there Gparted (GNU Parted), as we'll need it to create a new Hard Disk Partition:

 

$ VirtualBox

 


Inside virtualmachine's in gnome-terminal / xterm etc. depending on the graphical environment used do install with apt-get:

 

debian:# apt-get install –yes gparted

 

debian~:# gparted


Notice that gparted has to be ran as a root superuser.

 

Run GParted and create new EXT3 filesystem that is 10GB (the size of the new created partition).

If you have installed Debian to place all partitions under / (root directory /dev/sda1) then the fresh new partition to create should be
/dev/sda3, anyways just look closely in EXT3 and in your case if the partiition is named differently create according to proper partition /dev/ naming.

I'll not run into details on how to create the partition with GParted as the program interface is very self-explanatory, the only thing is to apply the update to create partition and the ext3 filesystem, that's being done
with a green tick:

gparted-create-ext3-partition-howto-linux

Next step is to check with fdisk whether, we have ext3 properly created  filesystem as we've done already with GPARTED:

Once we have the partition created with EXT3 filesystem, we're ready to move /usr temporary to other folder, I use usually /root for the move but you can create anywhere a new folder for that and move to there.

To move to /root directory run again in terminal:

 

debian:~# mv /usr /root
debian:~# mkdir /usr

 

howto-extend-root-filesystem-disk-space-linux-move-usr-folder-to-root-temporary-debian-gnu-linux

 

Note that during the move operations, your Desktop icons will become without (with broken) pictures and the default Debian background picture is to disappear, that's because the GUI environment will soon realize /usr/ libraries that're periodically reloaded in memory are missing and will be unable to reload them as it does in a cycle.

That should take a few minutes, so grab a coffee or if you're a smoker (hope not as smoking kills 🙂 ), in 5 / 10 minutes time depending on your computer / server configuration, it will be over, so we're ready to create new /usr dir and mount the  new partition:

 

debian:~# mount /dev/sda3 /usr

 

howto-extend-root-filesystem-disk-space-linux-move-usr-folder-to-root-temporary-debian-gnu-linux1

 

Now we check with mount command whether mount is fine:

 

check-if-filesystem-is-properly-mounted-linux-debian-screenshot


Now  /dev/sda3 is mounted under /usr  and we have to move back /root/usr directory content back to the newly mounted /usr so we run command:
 

debian:~#  mv /root/usr/* /usr/*


Finally we need to create proper records for the new partition inside /etc/fstab (fstab –FileSystem Tab file – the file which describes instructs the Linux OS what partition to boot where, what)

HOW TO CHECK LINUX UUID FOR A PARTITION??

Before adding anything to /etc/fstab you need to check the UUID of /dev/sda3 (or whatever the partition is called), without proper UUID, the system might fail to boot.
So here is how to check the UUID we'll need for config:

 

hipo@debian:~$ /sbin/blkid /dev/sda3
/dev/sda3: UUID="2273db4b-3069-4f78-90fc-e7483c0305bd" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

hipo@debian:~$ ls -al /dev/disk/by-uuid/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 100 Oct  6 05:16 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 120 Oct  6 05:16 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Oct  6 05:16 2273db4b-3069-4f78-90fc-e7483c0305bd -> ../../sda3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Oct  6 05:16 b98d92cd-41aa-4e18-a474-9b8df445dbe5 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Oct  6 05:16 f27f7448-f200-4983-b54f-b9e5206f77ac -> ../../sda5

As you can see our /dev/sda3 UUID is 2273db4b-3069-4f78-90fc-e7483c0305bd

Further on lets view and edit /etc/fstab you can also download a copy of my Virtual Machine fstab here

 

debian:~# cat /etc/fstab

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=b98d92cd-41aa-4e18-a474-9b8df445dbe5 /               ext3    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=f27f7448-f200-4983-b54f-b9e5206f77ac none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/scd0       /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/scd1       /media/cdrom1   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0


We need to add following line to  /etc/fstab:
 

UUID=2273db4b-3069-4f78-90fc-e7483c0305bd    /usr        ext3 error=remount-ro    0    1

 


Open the file with your favourite text editor (gedit / nano / pico / vim / joe) etc.

debian:~# vim /etc/fstab

 

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=b98d92cd-41aa-4e18-a474-9b8df445dbe5 /               ext3    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=f27f7448-f200-4983-b54f-b9e5206f77ac none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/scd0       /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/scd1       /media/cdrom1   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0

UUID=2273db4b-3069-4f78-90fc-e7483c0305bd     /usr        ext3 error=remount-ro    0    1    

Basicly it should be possible to add (for historic reasons) also instead of UUID=2273db4b-3069-4f78-90fc-e7483c0305bd  /dev/sda3
So it looks like so but, the better practice is to use UUID line given.

Well that's all folks now /usr directory will contain all your heavy root partition (disk filling) libraries and files, so you can happily use /var/lib/mysql or /var/lib/postgresql /var/www to store your web application files and import your databases.

Big thanks to Ubuntu Forums article – How do I increase the hard disk size of the Virtual Machine article for inspiring this post.

Hope that helps anyone and thanks and other comments are always welcome ! 🙂

PHP: Better Webhosting Security – Disable exec(), exec_shell(), system(), popen(), eval() … shell fork functions

Sunday, June 23rd, 2013

increase php security better php security by disabling fork shell system and eval functions

If you work as System Administrator of WebHosting company, you definitely know how often it is that some automated cracker scripts (working as worms) intrude through buggy old crappy custom coded sites or unupdated obsolete Joomla / WordPress etc. installs. and run themselves trying to harvest for other vulnerable hosts. By default PHP enables running commands via shell with PHP functions like exec();, shell_exec(); , system();. and those script kiddie scripts use mainly this functions to spawn shell via vulnerable PHP app. Then scripts use whether php curl support is installed (i.e. php5-curl) to download and replicate itself to next vulnerable hop.

With that said it is a must after installing new Linux based server for hosting to disable this functions, to save yourself from future hassles …
Earlier, I blogged how to disable PHP system system(); and exec(); functions to raise Apache security using suhosin however this method requires php suhosin being used.

Yesterday, I had to configure new web hosting server with Debian 7, so I tried installing suhosin to use it to protect PHP from having enabled dangerous system();, eval(); exec(); .
I remember disabling system(); using suhosin php extension was working fine on older Debian releases, however in Debian 6.0, php5-suhosin package was causing severe Apache crashes and probably that's why in latest Debian Wheezy 7.0, php suhosin extension is no longer available. Therefore using suhosin method to disable system();, exec(); and other fork functions is no longer possible in Debian.

Since, suhosin is no longer there, I decided to use conventional PHP method via php.ini.

Here is how to do it

Edit:

/etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

debian:~# vim /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
And near end of file placed:

disable_functions =exec,passthru,shell_exec,system,proc_open,
popen,curl_exec, curl_multi_exec,parse_ini_file,show_source

allow_url_fopen Off
allow_url_include Off

It is good to explain few of above functions – shell_exec, proc_open, popen, allow_url_fopen, show_source  and allow_url_include.

Disabling shell_exec – disables from PHP scripts executing commands with bash slash ` `, i.e. `ls`. proc_open and popen allows reading files from file system.

show_source – makes possible also reading other PHP source files or can be used to display content of other files from fs.

To read newly placed config vars in php.ini usual apache restart is necessary:

debian:~# /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
[….] Restarting web server: apache2
. ok

Further on tо test whether system();, exec();, passthru(); … etc. are disabled. Make new PHP file with content:

<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
$disabled_functions = ini_get('disable_functions');
if ($disabled_functions!='')
{
    $arr = explode(',', $disabled_functions);
    sort($arr);
    echo 'Disabled Functions:
        ';
    for ($i=0; $i<count($arr); $i++)
    {
        echo $i.' - '.$arr[$i].'<br />';
    }
}
else
{
    echo 'No functions disabled';
}
?>

php show disabled functions screenshot improve php security by disabling shell spawn functions

Copy of above source code show_disabled_php_functions.php is here for download
. To test your Apache PHP configuration disabled functions download it with wget or curl and rename it to .php:

# cd /var/www # wget -q https://www.pc-freak.net/files/show_disabled_php_functions.php.txt
mv show_disabled_php_functions.php.txt show_disabled_php_functions.php

After disabling functions on those newly setup Debian hosting Apache webserver, I remembered, same functions were still active on another CentOS Linux server.

To disable it there as well, had to edit:

/etc/php.ini

[root@centos:~]# vim /etc/php.ini

And again place after last file line;

disable_functions =exec,passthru,shell_exec,system,proc_open,popen,
curl_exec, curl_multi_exec,parse_ini_file,show_source

allow_url_fopen Off
allow_url_include Off

Finally on CentOS host, had to restart Apache:

[root@centos:~]# /etc/init.d/httpd restart

For Security paranoids, there are plenty of other PHP functions to disable including, basic functions like ln, mv, mkdir, cp, cat etc.

Below is list of all functions to disable – only disable this whether you you're a PHP security freak and you're 100% some server hosted website will not use it:

disable_functions = "ln, cat, popen, pclose, posix_getpwuid, posix_getgrgid, posix_kill, parse_perms, system, dl, passthru, exec, shell_exec, popen, proc_close, proc_get_status, proc_nice, proc_open, escapeshellcmd, escapeshellarg, show_source, posix_mkfifo, mysql_list_dbs, get_current_user, getmyuid, pconnect, link, symlink, pcntl_exec, ini_alter, pfsockopen, leak, apache_child_terminate, posix_kill, posix_setpgid, posix_setsid, posix_setuid, proc_terminate, syslog, fpassthru, stream_select, socket_select, socket_create, socket_create_listen, socket_create_pair, socket_listen, socket_accept, socket_bind, socket_strerror, pcntl_fork, pcntl_signal, pcntl_waitpid, pcntl_wexitstatus, pcntl_wifexited, pcntl_wifsignaled, pcntl_wifstopped, pcntl_wstopsig, pcntl_wtermsig, openlog, apache_get_modules, apache_get_version, apache_getenv, apache_note, apache_setenv, virtual, chmod, file_upload, delete, deleted, edit, fwrite, cmd, rename, unlink, mkdir, mv, touch, cp, cd, pico"

How to create user with only FTP access on Linux

Saturday, May 11th, 2013

Linux access only to ftp How to prohibit ssh access on GNU Linux

Creating user with access only through FTP is vital in daily routine system administration job. The reason why it is good to disable SSH access to users which don't need it is of course better security. Disabling access to ssh shell for users which don't need it prevents you for user to run malicious code usually exploits or some DDoS Fork bombs – like the infamous Linux shell Denial of Service string;

:(){ :|:&};:

Better not try above string on productive server 😉
So back to the topic here how to add Linux FTP only user;

1. Create a regular user with adduser or useradd (depending) on GNU / Linux distribution

adduser is available across most Linux distributions nowadays, however I remember in past there was some distros which had useradd instead. Anyways for most adduser should be ok. As of time of writting both 3 main stream Linux distributions Slackware, Debian and Fedora has adduser.

linux:~#  adduser new-user-for-ftp-only

Adding user `new-user-for-ftp-only' …
Adding new group `new-user-for-ftp-only' (1006) …
Adding new user `new-user-for-ftp-only' (1005) with group `new-user-for-ftp-only' …
Creating home directory `/home/new-user-for-ftp-only' …
Copying files from `/etc/skel' …
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Changing the user information for new-user-for-ftp-only
Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default
    Full Name []: New Linux User Only for FTP access  
    Room Number []:
    Work Phone []:
    Home Phone []:
    Other []:
Is the information correct? [Y/n] Y

linux:~#

2. Change user shell /bin/bash to /bin/false

Again depending on Linux distribution by default /bin/bash /bin/sh or /bin/whatever shell will get added. To make just created user access to SSH disabled. Change shell to /bin/false – a tiny program which just returns a FALSE value and quits immediately.

There are two ways to do so;

a) Edit directly /etc/passwd with vim / joe

linux:~# vim /etc/passwd

Go to end of file and find the record for user, should be smth like:

 

new-user-for-ftp-only:x:1005:1006:New Linux User Only for FTP access,,,:/home/new-user-for-ftp-only:/bin/bash

Change to;

new-user-for-ftp-only:x:1005:1006:New Linux User Only for FTP access,,,:/home/new-user-for-ftp-only:/bin/false

b) Use chsh cmd

linux:~# chsh new-user-for-ftp-only

Changing the login shell for new-user-for-ftp-only
Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default
    Login Shell [/bin/bash]: /bin/false

linux:~# grep -i new-user-for-ftp-only /etc/passwd

new-user-for-ftp-only:x:1005:1006:New Linux User Only for FTP access,,,:/home/new-user-for-ftp-only:/bin/false

3. Testing if ssh access to new user is disabled

linux:~# ssh new-user-for-ftp-only@localhost

new-user-for-ftp-only@localhost's password:
Linux noah 2.6.32-5-amd64 #1 SMP Mon Feb 25 00:26:11 UTC 2013 x86_64

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
Connection to localhost closed.

Linux Currency convert GUI tool KeuroCalc / Convert world currencies Desktop Linux application, Convert USD to EUR

Thursday, April 25th, 2013

keurocalc Linux convert us dollars to euro and to rest of major world currencies

If you happen to run a small business or you're just an adventurer who use Linux for his notebook Desktop. Sooner or later you will end up needing Linux software to convert between world currencies. Some might argue that such a software is obsolete since already there are the Google Currency Converter and plenty of other (online) web currency converter sites. However for people like to use desktop applications like me it is much better to use a separate desktop tool which do currency convertion. If this is the case with and you happen to use Debian GNU / Linux, Ubuntu Fedora or any other main stream Linux distribution on your Linux powered Laptop or Tablet you will be surely happy to know about KEuroCalc – Universal Currency Converter. As all "K"-named starting Linux apps unfortunately keurocalc is using QT KDE graphic library and thus whenever used on GNOME it starts a bunch of KDE services (kedinit,klauncher, kded), however the load of this few on any modern notebook or PC is neglectably low so for most users the only disadvantage of kerocalc might be interface is looking a bit different compared to rest of Gnome GTK+ programs.

To install keurocalc on deb based Linuces e.g. – Debian / Ubuntu, ArchLinux ..:

noah:~# apt-cache show keurocalc|grep -i description -A 3

Description: universal currency converter and calculator – binary package
 KEurocalc is a universal currency converter and calculator.
 It downloads latest exchange rates directly from the
 European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
 

noah:~# apt-get install --yes keurocalc

Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree      
Reading state information… Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  keurocalc
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 23 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/87.8 kB of archives.
After this operation, 319 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Selecting previously deselected package keurocalc.
(Reading database … 393466 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking keurocalc (from …/keurocalc_1.0.3-2_amd64.deb) …
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme …
Processing triggers for man-db …
Processing triggers for menu …
Processing triggers for gnome-menus …
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils …
Setting up keurocalc (1.0.3-2) …
Processing triggers for menu …

On Fedora, CentOS and rest of RPM based Linux distros keurocalc is installable too out of default package repositories:

[root@fedora ~]# yum -y -q install keurocalc
....

 

Here is a snapshot of keurocalc GUI interface;

Linux Universal Currency Converter Keurocalc

Keurocalc Linux universal currency converter settings screenshot

As you see from settings screenshot, information about rates can be obtained from 2 sources; – European Central Bank and New York Federal Reserve Bank. I give a try also to Euro, no network access (fixed rates only) method but unfortunately by choosing it you can only convert between Fixed Currencies (currencies which are already not in use – in EU member states who dropped their local currencies in favor of EURO).

I've tested the program and it works good, the disadvantage is convertion between some of the World currencies of countries with non-transparent planned (Soviet like) economies for example Belarus is not among app list of convertable currencies.

How to check what process is listening on network port with: lsof & fuser commands in Linux / BSD

Saturday, March 16th, 2013

It is a common thing for me as a Linux and FreeBSD sysadmin to know what process assignes to which port number? I'm sure many novice system administrators will end up sooner or later with same question. Knowing what kind of processes has listening to TCP and UDP protocol / ports is a must to have a proper configured Linux / BSD system. In Linux there are two commands ( lsof and fuser) with which you can get various extra PID information on running processes (i.e. get information which cannot otherwise be obtained via the usual ps and netstat  To use them on most Linux distributions, you will have to have them installed.

1. Install fuser / lsof on Linux / BSD

a) On RPM based Linux distros – Fedora, CentOS, RHEL, SuSE /sbin/fuser is usually part of base install psmisc rpm package, however /usr/sbin/lsof is not among standard installed rpms, so you have to manually install via yum:

[root@centos ~]# yum install -y lsof
….

b) On Deb based Linuxes (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, ArchLinux etc.). both lsof and fuser has to be installed via a separate packages non-part of Debian base install packs.

server:~# apt-get --yes install lsof fuser
....

On Debian full path location of both is in /bin/fuser and /usr/bin/lsof.

Two tools are precious swiss army knife outfit to use, whether you doubt someone cracked into a server or in doubt you might have "hidden" cracker processes on server.

c) Install fuser on Free/Net/Open/ BSD

bsd# cd /usr/ports/sysutils/fuser
bsd# make install clean
....
bsd# cd /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof
bsd# make install clean
....

2. Using fuser and lsof to look up process PIDs assigned to port numbers

lsof name is derived from List Open Files, as we know in UNIX, GNU / Linux,  *BSD everything on the system is a file, thus to get all kind of information concerning all active files (i.e. ports, PIDs, procotols and process names;

server:~# lsof +M -i4 | less

COMMAND     PID     USER   FD   TYPE   DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
portmap    1317   daemon    4u  IPv4     3930      0t0  UDP *:sunrpc[portmapper]
portmap    1317   daemon    5u  IPv4     3939      0t0  TCP *:sunrpc[portmapper] (LISTEN)
rpc.statd  1329    statd    4u  IPv4     3974      0t0  UDP *:657
rpc.statd  1329    statd    6u  IPv4     3983      0t0  UDP *:28530[status]
rpc.statd  1329    statd    7u  IPv4     3986      0t0  TCP *:58515[status] (LISTEN)
apache2    1625 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    1625 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
sshd       1918     root    3u  IPv4     4945      0t0  TCP *:ssh (LISTEN)
miniserv.  2155     root    5u  IPv4     5299      0t0  TCP *:20000 (LISTEN)
miniserv.  2155     root    6u  IPv4     5300      0t0  UDP *:20000
miniserv.  2161     root    6u  IPv4     5367      0t0  TCP *:webmin (LISTEN)
miniserv.  2161     root    7u  IPv4     5368      0t0  UDP *:10000
ntpd       2172      ntp   16u  IPv4     5395      0t0  UDP *:ntp
ntpd       2172      ntp   18u  IPv4     5402      0t0  UDP localhost:ntp
ntpd       2172      ntp   19u  IPv4     5403      0t0  UDP iqtest.soccerfame.com:ntp
ntpd       2172      ntp   20u  IPv4    16028      0t0  UDP secure.broomlake.com:ntp
apache2    4505 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    4505 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    4539 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    4539 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    4780 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    4780 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    4900 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    4900 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    4907 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    4907 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    4915 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    4915 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5067 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5067 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5133 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5133 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5134 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5134 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5148 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5148 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5152 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5152 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5259 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5259 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5265 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5265 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5266 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5266 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5346 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5346 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5356 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5356 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5467 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5467 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5523 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5523 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5568 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5568 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5715 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5715 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5716 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5716 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5758 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5758 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    5789 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    5789 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2    6106 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2    6106 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   16608 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   16608 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   16904 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   16904 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   17124 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   17124 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   17280 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   17280 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   20855 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   20855 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   20920 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   20920 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   21023 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   21023 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   22182 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   22182 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   23307 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   23307 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   23366 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   23366 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   23408 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   23408 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   23419 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   23419 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   23428 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   23428 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   23452 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   23452 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   23561 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   23561 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   23579 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   23579 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   23851 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   23851 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   24103 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   24103 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   24659 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   24659 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
sshd      25073     root    3u  IPv4 29855891      0t0  TCP iqtest.soccerfame.com:ssh->www.pc-freak.net:50176 (ESTABLISHED)
sshd      25084     hipo    3u  IPv4 29855891      0t0  TCP iqtest.soccerfame.com:ssh->www.pc-freak.net:50176 (ESTABLISHED)
apache2   25089 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   25089 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   26737 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   26737 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   27243 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   27243 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   27282 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   27282 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   27633 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   27633 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   28205 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   28205 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   29244 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   29244 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   29372 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   29372 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   29411 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   29411 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   29462 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   29462 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   29548 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   29548 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   30161 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   30161 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   31876 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   31876 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   31958 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   31958 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   32052 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   32052 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   32061 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   32061 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   32143 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   32143 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   32149 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   32149 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   32440 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   32440 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   32635 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   32635 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   32790 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   32790 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   40211 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   40211 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   40309 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   40309 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   40432 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   40432 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   40476 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   40476 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   46319     root    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   46319     root    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   46438 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   46438 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   46439 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   46439 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   46440 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   46440 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   46441 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   46441 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   46442 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   46442 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   46443 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   46443 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   46509     root    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   46509     root    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   46510     root    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   46510     root    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   46515     root    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   46515     root    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   51287 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   51287 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   51485 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   51485 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   51804 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   51804 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
named     54418     bind   20u  IPv4 31298857      0t0  TCP localhost:domain (LISTEN)
named     54418     bind   21u  IPv4 31298859      0t0  TCP iqtest.soccerfame.com:domain (LISTEN)
named     54418     bind   22u  IPv4 31298861      0t0  TCP secure.broomlake.com:domain (LISTEN)
named     54418     bind   23u  IPv4 31298865      0t0  TCP localhost:953 (LISTEN)
named     54418     bind  512u  IPv4 31298856      0t0  UDP localhost:domain
named     54418     bind  513u  IPv4 31298858      0t0  UDP iqtest.soccerfame.com:domain
named     54418     bind  514u  IPv4 31298860      0t0  UDP secure.broomlake.com:domain
named     54418     bind  515u  IPv4 31298864      0t0  UDP *:domain
proftpd   62010  proftpd    1u  IPv4 31306260      0t0  TCP *:ftp (LISTEN)
mysqld    62420    mysql   11u  IPv4 31306903      0t0  TCP *:mysql (LISTEN)
apache2   62582 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   62582 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   62845 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   62845 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)
apache2   64748 www-data    3u  IPv4     5456      0t0  TCP *:www (LISTEN)
apache2   64748 www-data    4u  IPv4     5458      0t0  TCP *:https (LISTEN)

Above lsof command lists all active listening processes port number on UDP and TCP/IP 4 proto with the assigned process PID number (in second column). This is very useful if you find out to have listening service on port number and you cannot figure out what process name exactly is listening.

A classic example, where this is very helpful is if you have a listening process on SMTP port 25 and you cannot identify what kind of mail server is taking up the port? This has happened me many times on Debian Linux based hosts, which by default had priorly installed sendmail and I later removed sendmail to install Postfix or Exim SMTP.
To find out what is assigning port 25, you had to grep the protocol name from all binded host processes, like so:

 

server:~# lsof +M -i4 | grep -i smtp

exim4     17550     root    3u  IPv4 31577966      0t0  TCP localhost:smtp (LISTEN)

Whether you want to get information on Process ID, binding other random port lets say port 10000, following same logic you can grep it:

server:~# lsof +M -i4 |grep -i 10000
miniserv.  2161     root    7u  IPv4     5368      0t0  UDP *:10000

To get rid of a process for which you're unsure what kind of (/etc/init.d/service-name) init script is starting it, you can then use kill cmd to stop it;

server:~# kill -9 2161

Second approach to find out what kind of process is listening on a random port or socket, lets say port num 58515 is by using fuser.

 

 

server:~# netstat -ltn4
Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State     
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:3306            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN    
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:111             0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN    
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:80              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN    
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:10000           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN    
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:58515           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN    
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:21              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN    
tcp        0      0 77.92.85.71:53          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN    
tcp        0      0 109.123.106.44:53       0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN    
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:53            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN    
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:22              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN    
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:953           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN    
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:443             0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN    
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:20000           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN    

Below netstat cmmand, lists all active listening processes on respective IP address and port for protocol TCPIP v.4.

Hence on to get more information on what process is listening on port 58515?

server:~#  fuser -v 58515/tcp

                     USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
58515/tcp:           statd      1329 F…. rpc.statd

Once you know what is listening, whether you want to kill it this is also possible directly through fuser;

 

server:~# fuser -vk 58515/tcp

As a close-up, I will say fuser and lsof are two must have software tools on any productive server. It is among the critical applications admin has to install during initial server set-up. fuser and lsof helps me often in my sysadmin work, it was more than once I've used them to identify script-kiddies exploit scanners running as a standard process names, as well secretly listening on weird port number  cracker back-doors.

Hopefully this little article, helps someone learn something new. Plenty is written and will be written and if one takes the time to research he can learn much, much more. I'm sure my tiny article is nothing new under the sun for old-school admins, I still hope it will be of use to novice. I'm looking forward to hear if I'm missing some neat use or some interesting case, when lsof or fuser "saved your ass" 🙂