crazylazy.info

In short

I used

1. a 2.6.32.12 Linux Kernel (newly introduced: Kernel Samepage Merging can lower a virtualization solution's memory consumption)
2. patched it with the Linux-VServer grsec patch
3. applied the standard Ubuntu 10.4 Lucid Server configuration
4. applied grsec "High" preference and customized it (details are in the Kernel config section)
5. optimized it for KVM, VMware (software binary translation gets switched on by internal heuristics - chpax is still necessary if you want that feature and that is intended that way), and of course Vserver (just works). KVM Qemu works due KVM works.

Why to hate typical Unix mailserver setups

I hate that stuff - and it's not that Postfix in particular sucks. But integrating with Postfix is absurd. Surely it works, and as long as it works nobody changes that stuff on how it's designed.

Even deploying an SSL/TLS setup is challenging. But no, you also need to install proper authentication. Locally, Postfix (for unknown reasons) is chrooted. People think that this is a security feature.

Beware!

It's dangerous to use prototyping professionally. Sometimes management folks tend to "not realize" the difference between a well done prototype and the result they desire for real. - Therefore use GPL licensed stuff "for compliance reasons" - if you know what I mean. Saves job and time.
There're numerous ways to enhance the following examples. Feel free to do so.

It's not a bug...

No... surely not. But if you're using Wing IDE for example and you edit files with an X11 based editor, you might want to sync your clipboards. Thing is: it seems MacOS 10.5's X11.app doesn't allow this by default and there's no option for that based on the frontend.

Edit the plist

Let X11.app's Preference menu activate the native key-set emulation to make use of the Apple keys. Do not use this preference panel again because it'll undo the following:

No more emulation

When it comes to the commandline administrators all over the Windows worlds nowadays think of Cygwin or Powershell. However Cygwin is a special layered environment and Powershell is .Net dependant and not very reactive.
Therefore I tend to turn back to the good old DOS-like commandline and add some stuff to the environment path in order to ease my life. However many people may think that extending your commandline tools doesn't help you in situations where you don't find these tools: on Windows the commandline is just an extra. The following stuff of course doesn't help you to do post-exploitation or to show of at your friends machine. But it helps to save time. My time ;).

UnixUtils

wishi's Fuzz-Box

A Fuzz-Box for me is a standalone machine. It has to:

• host multiple virtual machines at once (max 2 in my case)
• effectively manage ~4 GB RAM
• be Linux compatible with, stable clean device drivers
• energy efficient and ergonomically able to run 24h/day 7d/week...

Scaling Hardware?

You don't want a performance monster. - Or a gaming machine. And you do not want trash, because you're going to spend valuable time with it.

Usability war

I began to read Windows Internals in the 5th edition by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon. There're experiemnets in there on how to do Kernel mode debugging, or how to include Debug symbols with Sysinternals ProcessExplorer... and lots of fascinating stuff to try in order to explore the architecture of modern NT6 systems. Before I was able to start my explorations, I had to install Windows 7 (NT 6.1) on a MacBook. But there's Bootcamp and Apple officially supports it. So... that shouldn't be a big deal?!