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<H3 align="left"><img src="../../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Some juicy rants from The Answer Guy</H3>
<p align="right"><strong>Snippings Provided By The Wizard's Hat
</strong></p>
<p><strong>From Billy a.k.a. CustomerMarket
</strong></p>
<p><strong><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>Hi All</strong></p>
<p><strong>
I am trying to configure my two computers With Linux and Windows 2000
into network. I am using DSL modem and router.
I would really appreciate if somebody can spare a few ideas because I am
on verge of breaking my head.
(Not literally thou)
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Thank you all
<br>Billy</strong></p>
<blockQuote>
<IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
> [Wizard Hat]
Okay. You install and configure Linux and connect it to your network.
Then you install MS Windows 2000 on the other computer and connect it
to your network.
</blockQuote><blockQuote>
I'm going to make a wild ass guess that your DSL modem/router is doing
IP Masquerading (a particular form of NAT, network address translation)
and it problem offers DHCP services on it's "inner" (or LAN, <em>local</em>
area network) interface --- leasing out a set of RFC1918 "reserved"
addresses (192.168.x.*, 10.* or 172.16.*.* through 172.31.*.*). So,
you can probably configure both computers to just get their networking
information from the router dynamically (automatically).
</blockQuote><blockQuote>
The exact details of configuring your router, and W2K for this are
beyond our purview. Talk to your ISP or refer to the router's
documentation for the former. Call Microsoft or find a
Microsoft-centric support forum for the latter.
</blockQuote><blockQuote>
The precise details of configuring Linux to use DHCP depend on which
distribution you use. In general the installation programs for
mainstream distributions will offer this option in some sort of dialog
box or at some sort of prompt. That's the easiest way of doing it
(easiest meanining: "requiring the least explanation in this e-mail").
You haven't said what distribution you're running, so I couldn't offer
more specific suggestions without having to write a book.
</blockQuote><blockQuote>
This all seems pretty obvious. I suspect that you have some other
needs in mind. However, we haven't installed the telepathy protocol
daemons in our little brains yet. So we can't hazard a guess as to
what you mean by 'configure.'
</blockQuote><blockQuote>
I might gues that you want to do file sharing between the two: read
a book on Samba to let Linux export/share some of it's disk space
(filesystems and directories) to the MS Win2K system and perhaps looks
for a chapter or so on smbfs for Linux to "mount" (access) shares <em>from</em>
the W2k system (i.e. to go the other way).
</blockQuote><blockQuote>
I might guess that you want to access your Linux system, particular
it's command line interface from your Windows desktop system. In that
case download and install Putty (the best free ssh client, I would say
the best ssh client all around, for MS Windows). That will allow you
to "ssh" into your Linux system (open command prompt windows to
administer it and run programs there from. You might even want to
remotely access graphical Linux programs from the Windows box (or vice
versa). In that case you'd probably want to look into VNC (virtual
network computing --- actually a rather silly name). VNC clients and
servers run under Linux (and other forms of UNIX) and MS windows, and
there is a Java client that can even run from a web browser.
</blockQuote><blockQuote>
There are numerous other ways to do each of these, BTW. You could
install NFS clients on the Windows side for filesharing (those were all
commercial last I heard). You could use the MS Windows telnet clients
and install and configure the deprecated (as in "insecure, use at your
own peril) telnet service (daemon) on the Linux side for character mode
(terminal and command line) access. And you could get X servers for MS
Windows --- most are commercial, and/or you could run rdesktop for Linux
to access the MS Windows "Terminal Server" features (however the
Terminal Services are an expensive add-on for Windows, as far as I
know). In other words, Samba/smbfs, Putty/ssh, and VNC represent a set
of services that provide file, command, and remote graphical support
between the two systems using only free software and well known
software at both ends.
</blockQuote><blockQuote>
I <em>might</em> provide more details on how these packages could be used.
However, each of these is just a shot in the dark at what you <em>might</em>
be looking for. So I've spend enough time on the question.
</blockQuote><blockQuote>
Here are a few URLs you can use to read more about these packages:
</blockQuote><blockQuote>
<ul>
<li> Samba: <a href="http://www.samba.org/">http://www.samba.org/</a>
<li> OpenSSH: <a href="http://www.openssh.org/">http://www.openssh.org/</a>
(Both of the preceding packages are included with every major
mainstream Linux distribution by default. SSH is often
installed and configured automatically these days --- just
check the appropriate box during your Linux installation, Samba
may require somewhat more manual configuration).
<li> Putty: <a href="http://people.nl.linux.org/~bjs/putty/download.html">http://people.nl.linux.org/~bjs/putty/download.html</a>
(SSH client for MS Windows can be installed by just dropping
one .EXE file into any directory -- optionally on your PATH.
--- other optional components are similarly easy to install)
<li> Cygwin: <a href="http://cygwin.com/">http://cygwin.com/
(Environment to support UNIX and Linux software, compiled and
running natively under MS Windows. I mention it here primarily
because they have a list of packages that have already been
ported --- ssh clients and servers in particular. Note: the
level of integration and interoperation between the Cygwin
environment and the rest of MS Windows can be frustratingly
rudimentary. It can be confusing and the Cygwin environment
can feel like an isolated subsystem of the Windows box; almost
like being on a different machine at times).
<li> VNC: <a href="http://www.realvnc.com/">http://www.realvnc.com/</a>
(Included with many distributions, but usually not installed by
default. You have to install and configure it manually).
<li> TightVNC: <a href="http://www.tightvnc.com/">http://www.tightvnc.com/</a>
(An enhanced version of VNC, also free under the GPL. Might
be better on the MS Windows side as client and server for the
Win2K box)
<li> rdesktop: <a href="http://www.rdesktop.org/">http://www.rdesktop.org/</a>
(A client for the MS Windows RDP (remote desktop protocol),
which is apparently derived from the Citrix ICA protocol.
The client runs on Linux or UNIX. Might require special MS
Windows softare or licensing on the server side).
</ul></blockQuote>
Please note: anything I say about MS Windows is likely to be wrong. I
haven't used MS Windows regularly for almost 10 years. At the last couple
of places where I worked or contracted that put MS Windows systems on
my desk (to access Exchange for <em>their</em> e-mail and groupware/sheduler
functions) I found that I barely used them --- e-mail, browser, and
PuTTY were as much as I ever used on any of them. I'm almost exclusively
a UNIX/Linux administrator and programmer, so I deeply lost touch with
the whole Microsoft based universe.
</blockQuote>
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<HR WIDTH="40\%" ALIGN="center">
<p><em>
This was posted in the open forums attached to "Langa Letter" -- one of
the <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/">InformationWeek</a> regular
columns. The Answer Guy's actual reply is what's sitting here in my
clippings-box; the column which he is replying to was
<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
href="http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20030124S0013"
>Fred Langa / Langa Letter: Linux Has Bugs: Get Over It
/ January 23, 2003</a></em></p>
<p>
Fred's comment about "severity" is, as
he points out, inherently subjective.
His numerical analysis is also subject to more issues that he's simply ignoring.
</p><p>
For example the 157+ bug count for RH 7.2 or 7.3 includes fixes for many overlapping products and many which are rarely installed by Linux users -- RH simply includes a lot of optional stuff. Meanwhile the count for Micrsoft may still be artificially low, since MS is
known to deliberately minimize the number and severity of their bug reports. Many of their 30+ reported patches might include multiple fixes and
descriptions which downplay their signficance.
</p><p>
Fred also, inexcusably, argues that "first availability" of a fix (in source form, sometimes in focused, though public, mailing lists and venues) "doesn't count" as faster. That is simply jury rigging the semantics to support a prejudiced hypothesis.
</p><p>
Another approach to looking at the severity of bugs is to view the effect of exploits on the 'net as a whole.
<p></p>
In the history of Linux there have only been a couple of widespread worms (episodes where a bug's exploit was automated in a self-propagating fashion). Ramen, Lion and Adore are the
three which come to mind.
</p><p>
Subjectively the impact of these were
minimal. The aggregate traffic generated by them was imperceptable on
the global Internet scale. Note that
the number of Linux web, DNS and mail servers had already surpassed MS Windows servers by this time --- so the comparison is not numerically outrageous.
</p><p>
Compare these to Code Red, Nimba, and the most recent MS SQL injection worms. The number of hosts compromised, and the
effect on the global Internet have been significant.
</p><p>
I simply don't have the raw data available to make any quantitative assertions about this. However, the
qualitative evidence is obvious and irrefutable. The bugs in MS systems <b>seem</b> to be more severe than comparable bugs on Linux systems.
</p><p>
If a researcher were really interested in a rigorous comparison, one could gather the statistics from various perspectives --- concurrently trying to support and refute this hypothesis.
</p><p>
Fred is right, of course, that Linux has
many bugs --- far too many. However, he
then extends this argument too far. He uses some fairly shoddy anecdotal numbers, performs trivial arithmetic on them and tries to pass this off as analysis to conclude that there is no difference between MS XP security (and that of their other OSes) and Linux' (Red Hat).
</p><p>
I won't pass my comments off as anything but anecdotal. I won't look up some "Google" numbers to assign to them and try to pass them off as statistical analysis.
</p><p>
I will assert that Linux <b>is</b> different. That bugs in core Linux system components are fewer, less severe, fixed faster, and are (for the
skilled professional) easier to apply across an enterprise (and more robust) than security issues in Microsoft based systems.
</p><p>
The fact that numerous differences in these to OSes make statistical comparison non-trivial doesn't justify
the claim that there is no difference.
</p><p>
Further anecdotal observations show that the various Linux distributions and
open source programming teams have done more than simply patch bugs as they were found. Many of the CERT advisories in Linux and elsewhere (on the LWN pages, for example: http://www.lwn.net/ ) are the result of proactive code auditing by
Connectiva, Gentoo, S.u.S.E., IBM and
The MetaL group at Stanford, among many others. In addition many of these projects are signficantly restructuring their code, their whole subsystems, in order to eliminate whole classes of bugs and to minimize the impact of many others. For instance the classic problems of BIND (named, the DNS server) running as root and having access to the server's whole filesystem used to be mitigated by gurus by patching and reconfiguring it to run "chroot" (locked into a subdirectory tree) and with root privileges dropped after initial TCP/port binding (before interacting with foreign data). These mitigations are now part of the default design and installation of BIND 9.x. Linux and other UNIX installations used to enable a large number of services (including rsh/rlogin and telnet) by default. These services are now deprecated, and mainstream distributions disable most or all network services by default <b>and present dire warnings</b> in their various enabling dialog boxes and UI!
s).
before allowing users to enable them.</p><p>
These changes are not panacea. However,
they are significant in that they hold out the promise of reducing the number and severity of future bugs, and they artificially inflate recent statistics
(since the majority of this work as been
over the last two or three years).
</p><p>
Fred will undoubtedly dismiss these comments as being more "rabid advocation" by a self-admitted Linux enthusiast. He may even point to MS'
own widely touted "trustworthy computing" PR campaign as evidence of a
parallel effort on "the other side of the Gates." However this message isn't
really written to him.
</p><p>
It's written to those who want to make things better.
</p><p>
The real difference between security in MS and in Linux is qualitative rather than quantitative. With Linux every user and administrator is empowered to help themselves. Every one of us can, and many more of us should, accept a greater responsibility for our systems and their
integrity and security. Linux users (including corporations, governments and other organizations) can find and fix bugs and can participate in a global
community effort to eliminate them and
improve these systems for everyone.
</p><p>
Let's not get wrapped up in blind enthusiasm and open source patriotism. But let us not fall prey the the claim that there is no difference. There is a difference and each one of us can be a part of making that difference.
</p><p>
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<h5>
<br>Copyright &copy; 2003
<br>Copying license <A HREF="">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A>
<BR>Published in Issue 89 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 2003</H5>
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