Happy new year 2018
1 minute readHappy new year everyone!
best regards akendo
Merry Xmas
1 minute readA late Merry “Insert your seasonal remainder in here___“. A happy new year!
best regards akendo
Design update
1 minute readI changed some aspects of the blog design. Most notably is the change of the font. The default theme font is Source Code Pro. However, this font was created for reading source codes. I think that this font is not suitable for the main text of a blog. Especially, when I have an inline code block. Something I dislike.
Another change is the format of the dates. From a month-day-year to day.month.year. This format is more accustomed to me. Also, I changed the main page. Previously, the main page shows a list of the latest posts, including a summary for each listed post. Now, instead of the summary, the content of each post is displayed. All posts are licensed with a creative commons CC-BY now.
Later, I am goingt to rewrite posts and fix the hyperlinks. Many of my first posts are horribly written. A proper grammar check is necessary. I might change some aspects of the style sheet, too: Things like the background color and text alignment.
so far, Akendo
Snapper clean up
1 minute readA while ago I did a btrfs migration that includes the usage of snapper.
However, once in a while my disk is running full. Simply for every install sets of packages in pacman, snapper creates a snapshot.
So I need to clean up the snapshots of Snapper to get free disk space. Lucky enough, Snapper provide a unit file:
/usr/lib/systemd/system/snapper-cleanup.timer
[Unit]
Description=Daily Cleanup of Snapper Snapshots
Documentation=man:snapper(8) man:snapper-configs(5)
[Timer]
OnBootSec=10m
OnUnitActiveSec=1d
[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target
Running this will make Snapper clean up old snapshots and free disk space! For persistence you can enable this unit file:
sudo systemctl enable snapper-cleanup.timer
However doing this everyday seems to me a little bit much. So I changed to it once a week instead.
So my unit file looks like this:
[Unit]
Description=Daily Cleanup of Snapper Snapshots
Documentation=man:snapper(8) man:snapper-configs(5)
[Timer]
OnBootSec=10m
OnUnitActiveSec=1w
[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target
After doing this you need to run sudo systemctl daemon-reload to enable the changes.
best regards Akendo
cyber
4 minute readLet’s cyber!
There is some cyber in my blog! cyber… what? Don’t get the word wrong like cypher or cyder. Because I do “cybersecurity” and I work against cybercrime. What’s the different to a normal crime? It’s done in the cyberspace! So what’s cyberspace? Might be called the cyberinternet. Wait…the Internet is already cyber…so cybernet than or the dark web?
To much cyber…
There is cyberpunk, cyberspace (like the one from Ghost in the Shell) cyberwar, cyberterrorism and so on. Why does this word ‘cyber’ has become so popular lately? Maybe because of suddenly usage by every politician and lesser form of professional person in the internet? For many persons that are active in that field of computer security, this word is comply free of meaning.
What’s cyber?
The word has it’s roots in a research paper from 1950, where the idea of cybernetics or kybernetik was introduced. It’s the first use of the word, and it described a controller or regulator for an engine. It might be also used way back in the ancient. But they pictured with this word more a being or thing that is a navigator. In the academic paper it had it first modern usage, still related to control. Nowadays it meaning is in a relation to the Internet. A word that relates to a virtual space. Applied thing (like crime) with a thing from the no-technical world. Cyber as word has lost it meaning, if it had any. It became like an apple presentation, just a chain of words that are put up front of something that does not add any type of information. Most of the time you can just leave it away.
When you repeat a word or re-used it that often. It becomes, as the linguistics would say, a Passepartout.
What I like
… about the word is its connotation. It’s something new, mystical, some with with respect. At least for a common person. For most hackers I met, it’s a abortion and express disrespect against the technology. We can’t associate a thing with something. When someone says ‘it happen in the cyberspace…’, so it was an IP-Address or was it on a webserver, might be on your phone…it’s just vague. Another example that comes to mind is ‘cyberterrorism’, where here is not clean what the different is to any other type of wrongdoing on the Internet. In general is terrorism a word I can’t work with. Terror is a state, the highest degree of fear a person can fell. When a person is a terrorist he does depict ‘fear’. But that a moment. What’s when he’s in jail? Does he still emit ‘terror’? Should he be not a convict by than? Anyway that’s not the point I’m going to make.
However, language is a living and therefore a changing thing. Words like ‘cyber’ give people the power to talk about things they are affect off (or believe to ). Since the heavy usage of the internet, many more people going to be affect of it. So they want to relate to ‘it’ and finding new words to describe ‘it’. That do work because the word are NOT defined and not know to us. When I ask you to explain “cyber”, to me, what would you say?
Wikipedia has very ‘good’ description of what it supposed to be:
Cyberwarfare has been defined as “actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation’s computers or networks for the purposes of causing damage or disruption,”[1]:6 but other definitions also include non-state actors, such as terrorist groups, companies, political or ideological extremist groups, hacktivists, and transnational criminal organizations.
A look into the reference list of Wikipedia and the fist entry is a book about Cyber War from Richard A. Clarke, a former presidential advisor and ‘counter-terrorism’ expert. (Who declared him as a expert?)
Yet we can see that most of this topics are from around 2010, fewer before 2009. Most of this information that is done before does not exists. We can see that this change the way to see the word. Why not any cyber word? Because it’s the witch military have understood the value of attack other as strategy. This would need more resource to work with.
in the end…
… it’s a word use to describe nothing. It allow however to justify with means other things. Because all we know is, that there is a ‘threat from the cyberspace’. That wants to steal our bank account and infect our computer! But it’s not that simple. That’s why I don’t like the word. But language lives and there I have to live with the word.
[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cebFWOlx848
€dit: It took me 1 year to get this done… and this two years i had this one in there query. €dit2: Add a picture, thanks to @Cyberrolle(on Twitter) for let me use this image.
btrfs migration
17 minute readMigration to btrfs
As some of you might know, it take me often quite some time to get things done. One of this ongoing issue is the migration of my filesystem. For more than two years i wanted to migrate the root filesystem of my laptop from ext4 to btrfs. In fact i did this migration two years ago, but only partly. Ever since i’m stuck with a half finished migration of btrfs.
What’s btrfs?
So for anyone who havn’t heard of btrfs. btrfs is a new type of filesystem, with similar features like zfs. Where new is new like a second-hand car. It works fine, but isn’t the newest and most shining model on the market. But it does quite good what is supposed to be there.
The feature include copy-on-write(cow), snapshot, subvolumes, data deduplication. Things a more ‘classic’ filesystem can’t do. snapshot with ext4? Only when you run lvm. What’s most interesting are the subvolumes. Compare them to a partition within the filesystem. It allows to slice the filesystem into more smaller chunk to store data. Like lvm, just within the filesystem itself. This allows to use snapshot more effective.
Migration
The migrate is quite simple:
btrfs-convert /dev/sdX
This will move all data from a extX to btrfs. In addition, the original filesystem will be preserved within a subvolume. At this stage you could validate the data of the original filesystem with the one migrated. When done, just remove the subvolume.
What’s next?
Here comes the trick part. All of the data are migrate to the top level structure of the filesystem. This allows usage of this file. However this isn’t the intended usage. In my case, the root filesystem is located here. I boot and work from this part. The right thing would be to move the data into a subvolume.
So btrfs is in place, but the problem is that i don’t use it in a desirable way. I moved all data from ext4 to btrfs and that’s it! But the idea was first to use the subvolume function and the snapshot function with snapper. Yet all of my data are in the top level container of btrfs. Creating the problem that I can’t really use the snapper function and not utilizing the snapshot at all. Even worse, this way I just use it in a traditional way.
Next step is to move the data away from the top level structure into separated subvolumes and than setup snapper.
Testing
Because my laptop is a productive system i didn’t want to mess up. I decided to get a testing environment that mimics my laptop. For this i installed a virtual machine with archlinux. The root filesystem will then migrate to btrfs. Next would be to than move all data to a subvolume and test that this migration will work. Including the boot process.
Setup a archlinux VM with vagrant
mkdir Vagrant-archlinux
cd Vagrant-archlinux
vagrant init
Note: You can download the Vagrantfile from here
Next step was to add a archlinux based box. I added one box from the http://www.vagrantbox.es/ . All of the boxes listed there are out-dated. I could have create a new one, but updating is faster. So I went with the newest box of them and updated it. This way it represented my laptop state. After the upgrade the migration to btrfs will be done to close the gap to my laptop.
vagrant box add archlinux http://vagrant.srijn.net/archlinux-x64-2014-01-07.box
I changed the default box in the to archlinux
config.vm.box = "archlinux"
Next is to start the VM:
vagrant up
Bringing machine 'default' up with 'virtualbox' provider...
==> default: Importing base box 'archlinux'...
==> default: Matching MAC address for NAT networking...
==> default: Setting the name of the VM: Vagrant-archlinux_default_1499030023852_79753
==> default: Clearing any previously set network interfaces...
==> default: Preparing network interfaces based on configuration...
default: Adapter 1: nat
==> default: Forwarding ports...
default: 22 (guest) => 2222 (host) (adapter 1)
==> default: Booting VM...
==> default: Waiting for machine to boot. This may take a few minutes...
default: SSH address: 127.0.0.1:2222
default: SSH username: vagrant
default: SSH auth method: private key
default:
default: Vagrant insecure key detected. Vagrant will automatically replace
default: this with a newly generated keypair for better security.
default:
default: Inserting generated public key within guest...
default: Removing insecure key from the guest if it's present...
default: Key inserted! Disconnecting and reconnecting using new SSH key...
==> default: Machine booted and ready!
==> default: Checking for guest additions in VM...
default: The guest additions on this VM do not match the installed version of
default: VirtualBox! In most cases this is fine, but in rare cases it can
default: prevent things such as shared folders from working properly. If you see
default: shared folder errors, please make sure the guest additions within the
default: virtual machine match the version of VirtualBox you have installed on
default: your host and reload your VM.
default:
default: Guest Additions Version: 4.3.6
default: VirtualBox Version: 5.1
==> default: Mounting shared folders...
default: /vagrant => /home/akendo/Vagrant-archlinux
Login into the VM
vgrant ssh
Last login: Mon Jan 6 21:50:22 2014 from 10.0.2.2
[vagrant@vagrant ~]$
Upgrading the old archlinux box
The upgrade was a bit trick and i had to do it twice. First was to get the newest packages
[vagrant@vagrant ~]$ sudo su -
[root@vagrant ~]# pacman -Syu
:: Synchronizing package databases...
core 124.7 KiB 291K/s 00:00 [########################################################################################] 100%
extra 1664.6 KiB 2.09M/s 00:01 [########################################################################################] 100%
community 3.9 MiB 3.10M/s 00:01 [########################################################################################] 100%
:: Starting full system upgrade...
:: Replace dirmngr with core/gnupg? [Y/n]
:: Replace dnsutils with extra/bind-tools? [Y/n]
:: Replace libdbus with core/dbus? [Y/n]
:: Replace libltdl with core/libtool? [Y/n]
:: Replace libusbx with core/libusb? [Y/n]
:: Replace virtualbox-guest-modules with community/virtualbox-guest-modules-arch? [Y/n]
resolving dependencies...
:: There are 3 providers available for libgl:
:: Repository extra
1) libglvnd 2) nvidia-304xx-utils 3) nvidia-340xx-utils
Enter a number (default=1): 1
warning: dependency cycle detected:
warning: systemd will be installed before its cryptsetup dependency
warning: dependency cycle detected:
warning: harfbuzz will be installed before its freetype2 dependency
warning: dependency cycle detected:
warning: mesa will be installed before its libglvnd dependency
looking for inter-conflicts...
Packages (247): acl-2.2.52-3 archlinux-keyring-20170611-1 attr-2.4.47-2 autoconf-2.69-4 automake-1.15-2 bash-4.4.012-2 bind-tools-9.11.1.P1-1 binutils-2.28.0-3 bison-3.0.4-2 bzip2-1.0.6-6 ca-certificates-20170307-1
ca-certificates-cacert-20140824-4 ca-certificates-mozilla-3.31-3 ca-certificates-utils-20170307-1 compositeproto-0.4.2-3 coreutils-8.27-1 cracklib-2.9.6-1 cronie-1.5.1-1 cryptsetup-1.7.5-1 curl-7.54.1-1
damageproto-1.2.1-3 db-5.3.28-3 dbus-1.10.18-1 desktop-file-utils-0.23-1 device-mapper-2.02.172-1 dhcpcd-6.11.5-1 diffutils-3.6-1 dirmngr-1.1.1-1 [removal] dnssec-anchors-20170228-1 dnsutils-9.9.2.P2-1 [removal]
e2fsprogs-1.43.4-1 elinks-0.13-18 expat-2.2.1-1 fakeroot-1.21-2 file-5.31-1 filesystem-2017.03-2 findutils-4.6.0-2 fixesproto-5.0+9+g4292ec1-1 flex-2.6.4-1 fontconfig-2.12.3-1 fontsproto-2.1.3-2 freetype2-2.8-2
gawk-4.1.4-2 gc-7.6.0-1 gcc-7.1.1-3 gcc-libs-7.1.1-3 gdbm-1.13-1 geoip-1.6.10-1 geoip-database-20170606-1 gettext-0.19.8.1-2 glib2-2.52.2+9+g3245eba16-1 glibc-2.25-5 gmp-6.1.2-1 gnupg-2.1.21-3 gnutls-3.5.13-1
gpgme-1.9.0-3 gpm-1.20.7-7 graphite-1:1.3.10-1 grep-3.0-1 groff-1.22.3-7 grub-2:2.02-1 guile-2.2.2-1 gzip-1.8-2 harfbuzz-1.4.6-1 htop-2.0.2-1 hwids-20170328-1 iana-etc-20170512-1 icu-59.1-1 inetutils-1.9.4-5
iproute2-4.11.0-1 iptables-1.6.1-1 iputils-20161105.1f2bb12-2 js185-1.0.0-3 json-c-0.12.1-1 kbd-2.0.4-1 kbproto-1.0.7-1 keyutils-1.5.10-1 kmod-24-1 krb5-1.15.1-1 ldns-1.7.0-3 less-487-1 libaio-0.3.110-1
libarchive-3.3.1-5 libassuan-2.4.3-1 libatomic_ops-7.4.6-1 libcap-2.25-1 libdbus-1.6.18-3 [removal] libdrm-2.4.81-1 libedit-20170329_3.1-1 libelf-0.169-1 libepoxy-1.4.3-1 libevdev-1.5.7-1 libevent-2.1.8-1
libffi-3.2.1-2 libfontenc-1.1.3-1 libgcrypt-1.7.8-1 libglvnd-0.2.999+g4ba53457-2 libgpg-error-1.27-1 libgudev-231+1+g0841288-1 libice-1.0.9-1 libidn-1.33-1 libinput-1.7.3-1 libksba-1.3.4-2 libldap-2.4.44-5
libltdl-2.4.2-12 [removal] libmnl-1.0.4-1 libmpc-1.0.3-2 libnftnl-1.0.7-1 libnghttp2-1.23.1-1 libnl-3.3.0-1 libomxil-bellagio-0.9.3-1 libpcap-1.8.1-2 libpciaccess-0.13.5-1 libpipeline-1.4.1-1 libpng-1.6.29-1
libpsl-0.17.0-2 libsasl-2.1.26-11 libseccomp-2.3.2-1 libsecret-0.18.5+14+g9980655-1 libssh2-1.8.0-2 libsystemd-233-6 libtasn1-4.12-1 libtirpc-1.0.1-3 libtool-2.4.6-8 libtxc_dxtn-1.0.1-6 libunistring-0.9.7-1
libunwind-1.2.1-1 libusb-1.0.21-2 libusbx-1.0.17-1 [removal] libutempter-1.1.6-2 libutil-linux-2.29.2-2 libwacom-0.24-1 libx11-1.6.5-1 libxcb-1.12-1 libxcomposite-0.4.4-2 libxdamage-1.1.4-2 libxdmcp-1.1.2-1
libxext-1.3.3-1 libxfixes-5.0.3-1 libxfont-1.5.2-1 libxfont2-2.0.1-1 libxkbfile-1.0.9-1 libxml2-2.9.4+16+g07418011-2 libxrandr-1.5.1-1 libxrender-0.9.10-1 libxshmfence-1.2-1 libxt-1.1.5-1 libxxf86vm-1.1.4-1
licenses-20140629-2 linux-4.11.7-1 linux-api-headers-4.10.1-1 linux-firmware-20170422.ade8332-1 llvm-libs-4.0.1-1 lm_sensors-3.4.0-2 logrotate-3.12.2-1 lua51-5.1.5-6 lvm2-2.02.172-1 lz4-1:1.7.5-1 m4-1.4.18-1
make-4.2.1-2 man-db-2.7.6.1-2 man-pages-4.11-1 mdadm-4.0-1 mesa-17.1.4-1 mkinitcpio-23-1 mkinitcpio-busybox-1.26.1-1 mlocate-0.26-6 mpfr-3.1.5.p2-1 mtdev-1.1.5-1 nano-2.8.5-1 ncurses-6.0+20170527-1
net-tools-1.60.20160710git-1 netctl-1.12-2 nettle-3.3-1 npth-1.5-1 nspr-4.15-1 openresolv-3.9.0-1 openssh-7.5p1-2 openssl-1.1.0.f-1 p11-kit-0.23.7-1 pacman-5.0.2-1 pacman-mirrorlist-20170628-1 pam-1.3.0-1
patch-2.7.5-1 pciutils-3.5.4-1 pcre-8.40-1 perl-5.26.0-1 pinentry-1.0.0-1 pixman-0.34.0-1 pkg-config-0.29.2-1 popt-1.16-8 procps-ng-3.3.12-1 psmisc-22.21-3 pth-2.0.7-5 randrproto-1.5.0-1 readline-7.0.003-1
reiserfsprogs-3.6.25-1 renderproto-0.11.1-3 rsync-3.1.2-2 run-parts-4.8.1-1 s-nail-14.8.16-2 sed-4.4-1 shadow-4.4-3 sqlite-3.19.3-1 sudo-1.8.20.p2-1 sysfsutils-2.1.0-9 systemd-233-6 systemd-sysvcompat-233-6
tar-1.29-2 texinfo-6.4-1 thin-provisioning-tools-0.7.0-1 tmux-2.5-3 tre-0.8.0-4 tzdata-2017b-1 usbutils-008-1 util-linux-2.29.2-2 vi-1:070224-2 vim-8.0.0628-1 vim-runtime-8.0.0628-1
virtualbox-guest-modules-4.3.6-2 [removal] virtualbox-guest-modules-arch-5.1.22-4 virtualbox-guest-utils-5.1.22-2 wayland-1.13.0-1 wget-1.19.1-2 which-2.21-2 xcb-proto-1.12-3 xextproto-7.3.0-1
xf86-input-evdev-2.10.5-1 xf86-input-libinput-0.25.1-1 xf86vidmodeproto-2.3.1-3 xfsprogs-4.11.0-1 xkeyboard-config-2.21-2 xorg-bdftopcf-1.0.5-1 xorg-font-util-1.3.1-1 xorg-font-utils-7.6-4
xorg-fonts-encodings-1.0.4-4 xorg-fonts-misc-1.0.3-5 xorg-mkfontdir-1.0.7-8 xorg-mkfontscale-1.1.2-1 xorg-server-1.19.3-2 xorg-server-common-1.19.3-2 xorg-setxkbmap-1.3.1-1 xorg-xkbcomp-1.4.0-1 xorg-xrandr-1.5.0-1
xproto-7.0.31-1 xz-5.2.3-1 zlib-1:1.2.11-1
Total Download Size: 325.87 MiB
Total Installed Size: 1238.04 MiB
Net Upgrade Size: 586.92 MiB
:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n]
At this point i got a ton of message. I went on and accepted all of them. He will then download of the packages of the last 3 years.
But the upgrade will fail because of the keyring. It’s necessary to upgrade the archlinux-keyring manual.
[root@vagrant ~]# pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/archlinux-keyring-20170611-1-any.pkg.tar.xz
loading packages...
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...
Packages (1): archlinux-keyring-20170611-1
Total Installed Size: 0.89 MiB
Net Upgrade Size: 0.34 MiB
:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y
(1/1) checking keys in keyring [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking package integrity [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) loading package files [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking for file conflicts [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking available disk space [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) upgrading archlinux-keyring [########################################################################################] 100%
==> Appending keys from archlinux.gpg...
gpg: 3 marginal(s) needed, 1 complete(s) needed, PGP trust model
gpg: depth: 0 valid: 1 signed: 4 trust: 0-, 0q, 0n, 0m, 0f, 1u
gpg: depth: 1 valid: 4 signed: 72 trust: 0-, 0q, 0n, 4m, 0f, 0u
gpg: depth: 2 valid: 70 signed: 10 trust: 70-, 0q, 0n, 0m, 0f, 0u
gpg: next trustdb check due at 2017-10-20
==> Locally signing trusted keys in keyring...
-> Locally signing key DDB867B92AA789C165EEFA799B729B06A680C281...
-> Locally signing key 0E8B644079F599DFC1DDC3973348882F6AC6A4C2...
-> Locally signing key 684148BB25B49E986A4944C55184252D824B18E8...
-> Locally signing key 91FFE0700E80619CEB73235CA88E23E377514E00...
-> Locally signing key 44D4A033AC140143927397D47EFD567D4C7EA887...
-> Locally signing key AB19265E5D7D20687D303246BA1DFB64FFF979E7...
==> Importing owner trust values...
gpg: setting ownertrust to 4
gpg: setting ownertrust to 4
==> Disabling revoked keys in keyring...
-> Disabling key F5A361A3A13554B85E57DDDAAF7EF7873CFD4BB6...
-> Disabling key 7FA647CD89891DEDC060287BB9113D1ED21E1A55...
-> Disabling key D4DE5ABDE2A7287644EAC7E36D1A9E70E19DAA50...
-> Disabling key 40440DC037C05620984379A6761FAD69BA06C6A9...
-> Disabling key BC1FBE4D2826A0B51E47ED62E2539214C6C11350...
-> Disabling key 9515D8A8EAB88E49BB65EDBCE6B456CAF15447D5...
-> Disabling key 4A8B17E20B88ACA61860009B5CED81B7C2E5C0D2...
-> Disabling key 63F395DE2D6398BBE458F281F2DBB4931985A992...
-> Disabling key 0B20CA1931F5DA3A70D0F8D2EA6836E1AB441196...
-> Disabling key 8F76BEEA0289F9E1D3E229C05F946DED983D4366...
-> Disabling key 66BD74A036D522F51DD70A3C7F2A16726521E06D...
-> Disabling key 81D7F8241DB38BC759C80FCE3A726C6170E80477...
-> Disabling key 5E7585ADFF106BFFBBA319DC654B877A0864983E...
-> Disabling key E7210A59715F6940CF9A4E36A001876699AD6E84...
-> Disabling key 27FFC4769E19F096D41D9265A04F9397CDFD6BB0...
==> Updating trust database...
gpg: 3 marginal(s) needed, 1 complete(s) needed, PGP trust model
gpg: depth: 0 valid: 1 signed: 6 trust: 0-, 0q, 0n, 0m, 0f, 1u
gpg: depth: 1 valid: 6 signed: 72 trust: 0-, 0q, 0n, 6m, 0f, 0u
gpg: depth: 2 valid: 71 signed: 10 trust: 71-, 0q, 0n, 0m, 0f, 0u
gpg: next trustdb check due at 2017-10-20
Also the ca-certificates.crt needs to be removed as you can read here
[root@vagrant ~]# rm /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
At this point the re-run of pacman -Syu will be successful. Almost, because the mkinitcpio script needs to be rerun before.
Else the system won’t boot.
[root@vagrant ~]# mkinitcpio -p linux
==> Building image from preset: /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset: 'default'
-> -k /boot/vmlinuz-linux -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> Starting build: 4.11.7-1-ARCH
-> Running build hook: [base]
-> Running build hook: [udev]
-> Running build hook: [autodetect]
-> Running build hook: [modconf]
-> Running build hook: [block]
-> Running build hook: [filesystems]
-> Running build hook: [keyboard]
-> Running build hook: [fsck]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating gzip-compressed initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> Image generation successful
==> Building image from preset: /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset: 'fallback'
-> -k /boot/vmlinuz-linux -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img -S autodetect
==> Starting build: 4.11.7-1-ARCH
-> Running build hook: [base]
-> Running build hook: [udev]
-> Running build hook: [modconf]
-> Running build hook: [block]
==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: aic94xx
==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: wd719x
-> Running build hook: [filesystems]
-> Running build hook: [keyboard]
-> Running build hook: [fsck]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating gzip-compressed initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img
==> Image generation successful
Last but not least, we’ll install the btrfs package:
[root@vagrant ~]# pacman-db-upgrade
==> Pre-4.2 database format detected - upgrading...
[root@vagrant ~]# pacman -S btrfs-progs --force
...
Note: The --force is necessary. Last is to do a reboot, for testing that the system is on the newest state.
LiveCD for the migration
To perform the migration it needs to be done from a live system. At first I want to do this with the official archlinux image, yet it has an issue booting in Virtualbox. It just won’t start. Instead i took grml as live system.
Poweroff the vagrant box and open it in Virtualbox. Jack in the live CD and start the VM from Virtualbox. Only importance is that the right architecture is selected. The vagrant image is x86_64 so needs grml to be in 64 Bit.
You need another system to perform the migrate. The migrate from ext4 to btrfs won’t work with a running rootfs ontop.
Now to run the migration as discussed before”
btrfs-convert /dev/sda2
This took 38 seconds for this simple filesystem.
We’ll mount the disk now:
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/
cd /mnt
btrfs subvolume list .
ID 256 gen 3 top level 5 path ext2_saved
Seems good, finished up the migration by deleting the ext2_saved subvolume. One thing that surprised me was the name. Why wasn’t it name ext4_saved? Anyway, let’s move on:
btrfs subvolume delete ext2_saved
Delete subvolume (no-commit): '/mnt/ext2_saved'
One important change that need to be done here, the VM is configure to run with UUID, that needs to change to the block devices for now.
Replace the UUID in the /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/grub.cfg. I change the parameter #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
to GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
in /etc/default/grub and created a new config file.
[root@vagrant ~]# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Before I could restart the VM I have to add btrfs hook to the /etc/mkinitcpio.conf. Else the kernel don’t know what to start from.
HOOKS="base udev autodetect modconf block filesystems keyboard fsck btrfs"
Run:
mkinitcpio -p linux
==> Building image from preset: /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset: 'default'
-> -k /boot/vmlinuz-linux -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> Starting build: 4.11.7-1-ARCH
-> Running build hook: [base]
-> Running build hook: [udev]
-> Running build hook: [autodetect]
-> Running build hook: [modconf]
-> Running build hook: [block]
-> Running build hook: [filesystems]
-> Running build hook: [keyboard]
-> Running build hook: [fsck]
-> Running build hook: [btrfs]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating gzip-compressed initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> Image generation successful
==> Building image from preset: /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset: 'fallback'
-> -k /boot/vmlinuz-linux -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img -S autodetect
==> Starting build: 4.11.7-1-ARCH
-> Running build hook: [base]
-> Running build hook: [udev]
-> Running build hook: [modconf]
-> Running build hook: [block]
==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: wd719x
==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: aic94xx
-> Running build hook: [filesystems]
-> Running build hook: [keyboard]
-> Running build hook: [fsck]
-> Running build hook: [btrfs]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating gzip-compressed initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img
==> Image generation successful
Note: I did this from a chroot on the liveCD
A reboot later and everything was working!
[root@vagrant ~]# mount |grep btrf
/dev/sda2 on / type btrfs (rw,relatime,space_cache,subvolid=5,subvol=/)
Doing the job
At this point we do have a similar setup as my laptop. So what’s next?
I went to the btrfs wiki to get more details. What sees to me the best practices is to create a subvolume, move all necessary data into it and mount it directly. This can be done via the mount command and the subvol parameter. This will also be the default subvolume. By setting this as default i won’t have to change anything in grub. yay
First step was to create the a readonly snapshot of the filesystem:
[root@vagrant ~]# btrfs subvolume snapshot -r / /snapshot
Create a readonly snapshot of '/' in '//snapshot'
[root@vagrant ~]# ls -l /snapshot/
total 20
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Mar 26 21:57 bin -> usr/bin
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Jan 6 2014 boot
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Jan 6 2014 dev
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2268 Jul 2 21:47 etc
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 14 Jan 6 2014 home
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1588 Jan 6 2014 inside.sh
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Mar 26 21:57 lib -> usr/lib
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Mar 26 21:57 lib64 -> usr/lib
drwx------ 1 root root 0 Jan 6 2014 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 May 31 2013 mnt
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 May 31 2013 opt
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Jan 6 2014 proc
drwxr-x--- 1 root root 54 Jul 2 21:47 root
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10 Jul 2 21:46 run
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Mar 26 21:57 sbin -> usr/bin
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 14 May 31 2013 srv
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Jan 6 2014 sys
drwxrwxrwt 1 root root 0 Jul 2 21:47 tmp
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 70 Jul 2 21:27 usr
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Jul 2 21:14 vagrant
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 116 Jul 2 21:28 var
This will create a folder in the / folder, called snapshot (surprise ;-) ).
Next on the agenda is to create the subvolume:
[root@vagrant ~]# btrfs subvolume create /rootfs
Create subvolume '//rootfs'
[root@vagrant ~]# ls -l /rootfs/
total 0
By now we have a offline copy of the rootfs in /snapshot and the destination mount point in /rootfs. This calls for rsync. Simply copy all data from the snapshot into the subvolume for rootfs.
[root@vagrant ~]# cd /snapshot/
[root@vagrant snapshot]# rsync -raPh ./* /rootfs/
...
It might be useful to run the rsync command first with -n for a dry run. Make sure that you have enough disk space. I’m not sure if the deduplication is here working. Next is to set the default subvolume:
[root@vagrant mnt]# btrfs subvolume set-default 266 /
Now to the real exciting moment, the reboot. ANNNNND it did work ;-)
vagrant ssh
Last login: Sun Jul 2 21:49:14 2017 from 10.0.2.2
[vagrant@vagrant ~]$ mount|grep btrf
/dev/sda2 on / type btrfs (rw,relatime,space_cache,subvolid=266,subvol=/rootfs)
Hurray! Last is to clean up the mess and be done with it!
[root@vagrant ~]# mount -t btrfs -o subvol=/ /dev/sda2 /mnt/
[root@vagrant ~]# cd /mnt/
[root@vagrant mnt]# btrfs subvolume delete snapshot
[root@vagrant mnt]# rm -rvf ./{var,....}
[root@vagrant ~]# ls -lha /mnt/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 12 Jul 2 22:35 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 174 Jul 2 22:06 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 174 Jul 2 22:06 rootfs
Be aware when you remove the files from the top level structure not to remove the roofs folder!
endgame: snapper
After this long journey we can finally install snapper!
[root@vagrant ~]# pacmann -S snapper
-bash: pacmann: command not found
[root@vagrant ~]# ^C
[root@vagrant ~]# pacman -S snapper
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...
Packages (2) boost-libs-1.64.0-3 snapper-0.5.0-2
Total Download Size: 2.82 MiB
Total Installed Size: 13.76 MiB
:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y
:: Retrieving packages...
boost-libs-1.64.0-3-x86_64 2.3 MiB 2.52M/s 00:01 [########################################################################################] 100%
snapper-0.5.0-2-x86_64 546.6 KiB 14.4M/s 00:00 [########################################################################################] 100%
(2/2) checking keys in keyring [########################################################################################] 100%
(2/2) checking package integrity [########################################################################################] 100%
(2/2) loading package files [########################################################################################] 100%
(2/2) checking for file conflicts [########################################################################################] 100%
(2/2) checking available disk space [########################################################################################] 100%
:: Processing package changes...
(1/2) installing boost-libs [########################################################################################] 100%
Optional dependencies for boost-libs
openmpi: for mpi support
(2/2) installing snapper [########################################################################################] 100%
Optional dependencies for snapper
pam: pam_snapper [installed]
:: Running post-transaction hooks...
(1/1) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...
We’ll configure snapper by running:
[root@vagrant ~]# snapper -c root create-config /
[root@vagrant ~]# snapper list
Type | # | Pre # | Date | User | Cleanup | Description | Userdata
-------+---+-------+------+------+---------+-------------+---------
single | 0 | | | root | | current |
pacman hooks for snapper
To meaning use snapper, we’ll use the hook function of pacman. Creating each time a new snapshot of the rootfs when an update is run.
For this we can use finished script, simply install snap-pac.
[root@vagrant ~]# pacman -S snap-pac
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...
Packages (1) snap-pac-1.1-1
Total Download Size: 0.01 MiB
Total Installed Size: 0.03 MiB
:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y
:: Retrieving packages...
snap-pac-1.1-1-any 13.3 KiB 0.00B/s 00:00 [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking keys in keyring [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking package integrity [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) loading package files [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking for file conflicts [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking available disk space [########################################################################################] 100%
:: Processing package changes...
(1/1) installing snap-pac [########################################################################################] 100%
:: Running post-transaction hooks...
(1/3) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...
(2/3) Performing snapper post snapshots for the following configurations...
(3/3) You are installing snap-pac, so no post transaction snapshots will be taken.
Every new installation or upgrade will lead the post/pre hook to run:
[root@vagrant ~]# pacman -Ss sipcalc
community/sipcalc 1.1.6-2
an advanced console based ip subnet calculator.
[root@vagrant ~]# pacman -S sipcalc
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...
Packages (1) sipcalc-1.1.6-2
Total Download Size: 0.02 MiB
Total Installed Size: 0.05 MiB
:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y
:: Retrieving packages...
sipcalc-1.1.6-2-x86_64 23.4 KiB 219K/s 00:00 [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking keys in keyring [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking package integrity [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) loading package files [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking for file conflicts [########################################################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking available disk space [########################################################################################] 100%
:: Running pre-transaction hooks...
(1/1) Performing snapper pre snapshots for the following configurations...
==> root: 1
:: Processing package changes...
(1/1) installing sipcalc [########################################################################################] 100%
:: Running post-transaction hooks...
(1/2) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...
(2/2) Performing snapper post snapshots for the following configurations...
==> root: 2
[root@vagrant ~]# snapper list
Type | # | Pre # | Date | User | Cleanup | Description | Userdata
-------+---+-------+---------------------------------+------+---------+-------------------+---------
single | 0 | | | root | | current |
pre | 1 | | Sun 02 Jul 2017 10:42:17 PM UTC | root | number | pacman -S sipcalc |
post | 2 | 1 | Sun 02 Jul 2017 10:42:17 PM UTC | root | number | pacman -S sipcalc |
Awesome!
Put it all together.
It did work as intend on my laptop. I’m very happy about this! It might be interesting to see how well this snapshoting is working over time. But snapper provides also some auto clean ups. But only time can tell how well this is working.
so far so good.
best regards
Akendo
coreboot
2 minute read
Currently I’m looking for a topic to write a thesis about. One of the topics that came to my mind was coreboot. It happend some weeks ago during the presentation from Trammell Hudson about ‘Bootstraping a slightly more secure laptop’.
Knowing that coreboot is running very well on a Lenovo x230 devices and in general on x220/x210/x200 devices I was wondering if there might be any support for my x240? I went to the project page, there have a neat device list. However my x240 wasn’t listed. Why?
A search later I found some critical information. One post on phoronix. Next one on the blog of mjg.
Very simple: Intel added Hardware-based boot integrity protection. This ensure that only the manufacturer of the device can write new firmware to it. Intel Boot Guard (short: BG) is an extended security feature to ensure that security is working well with UEFI. It also prevent anyone to write custom firmware to it. coerboot is such custom firmware. So no coreboot on my x240….
Another idea was to look into the security bubble of the net to find some more information about BG. There is a quite interesting detail about BG. While Intel provides this function, it is not mandatory for a manufacture to enable it. However Lenovo seems to keep it quite tight. Almost, because they missed to enable BG on some of they devices correctly. An attack could add it’s own key to the hardware and create a persistent backdoor that wouldn’t allow any changes. Simple because Lenovo forgot to enable the hardware switch of BG. This switch fuses a key into the hardware. Something that can be done only once. In this presentation you can find some more details.
Unfortunately the x240 wasn’t on the list. So I might need to switch to another devices to do some work with coreboot.
best regards Akendo
Some thoughts about webcams
2 minute readMany people have covered they webcam with a sticker. They do this to prevent some bad people to take a picture of you.
I personal like this, but it misses a point. When someone is capable to access the webcam of your computer, you do have another set of problems.
Sure there are some software flaws that could allow access to the cam. For example via Google Chromes and a WebRTC session. But that would trigger the indicator light of the cam. A green, yellow or blue light next to the cam-slot. Therefore you can notice that the cam is active. A cover over the cam might protected against this type of software flaws.
So can assume that unless someone can control the indicator light, that you have to notice any usage. Does this mean you only protects against the usage case where someone is in control of the webcam hardware and is able to turn of the indicator light?
However to not turn on the indicator light you would have direct hardware access to the computer. There lies the issue. When someone is able to access the hardware directly, he can do whatever he want with the rest of it. You can install a keylogger to record any input. He can see what’s on your screen and he can install whatever software he wants onto the computer.
Most of the time this happens over a RAT (Remote Access Trojan). When such software is on your computer, taking a picture of you via the webcam seems the least of the problems.
Some notes about people and mistakes
2 minute readI have been criticize many times in my past for mistakes that were done. However, they just pointed the finger on what’s wrong. “You need to do this better”. That’s not helpful. Somehow this sounds normal for many, but it’s bad.
Don’t get me wrong, criticism is essential for everyone. We need it to become better in things we do. The questions is often how it’s done. One example that comes to my mind is grammar. I’m not good with grammar.
Especially when I wrote documentation. There is a always something I get wrong.
But you can tell someone that he made mistake in his writing or you can tell them that there are bad because of such mistakes. One points at a flaw, which is nice. The other is making you feel bad. Even worse you’re being punished for a mistake. But this way you’ll not get better with it.
Pushing for mistakes is a common patter I have seen over the past years. But it’s like a poison and not productive. Sure sometimes it can help. But most of the times it’s not.
What’s the point I want to make: Try not to do this. Try to add value to the things. Sometimes just the attempt is of value. It’s much about how we judge others and it’s hard to not fall for this pit. Point out where a mistake lies. Tell them how to detect them. Maybe how to prevent them for the further. Don’t make them feel bad about the mistake, help to feel good doing so and that they learning about it.
best regards Akendo