Network Administration, troubleshooting from Linux #1 Ping

Linux has dozens of tools for network troubleshooting, among them the famous Ping, the preferred tool that comes to my mind for any kind of IP connectivity related issue. This post is to explain basic information for people who would like to know its usage.

Ping is a well know tool to test the IP connectivity of a host in a network. When we execute ping followed by the host name/IP it sends Echo packets to the target until we press the Ctrl+C, in Linux.

TCP flags: Hackers Playground and Functions

TCP is a very important protocol in the Internet. More than half of the traffic in Internet uses TCP. When it comes to reliable communications, TCP plays a major role, let it be logging into Facebook  or opening a website like Wikipedia.com the underlying protocol which takes care of these reliable connections is TCP. TCP’s dominance over internet has its advantages and disadvantages from security point of view. The architecture of TCP/IP protocol suit doesn’t have any security features in built, what it has are algorithms for protocol timers, error correction, flow control, buffering, but there is nothing in code for its security, as Internet evolved the techniques to use it in unethical ways also evolved.

Finally Tattooed!

I finally got a tattoo! 

I had this dream since from my 18's, but I was pulled back by lot of stuff like family, friends, college environment and bla bla. I wasn't that free to take decisions when I was in college, like any other teen.

What is an Intrusion Detection System?

Definition from Wikipedia:

An intrusion detection system (IDS) is a device or software application that monitors network and/or system activities for malicious activities or policy violations and produces reports to a Management Station.

My own words:

Basically an IDS is a dedicated box tapped into a computer network which sniffs the traffic (raw packets) to check for anomalies/intrusions/virus/attacks. 

Top 50 Programming Quotes of All Time

I was reading my news feed on Google Reader and came across these quotes from the site http://www.junauza.com

I find it interesting, so copied to my blog …

50. “Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.”

– Rick Cook

Ubuntu 10.10 and Backtrack 4 R1 dual-boot

Hello! 

In this post I am going to explain about how to dual-boot Ubuntu 10.10 and Backtrack 4 R1.

I need Backtrack as I am learning some of its tools for learning hacking, running it in VirtualBox, but I want to have something that boots up directly to it, so that I can use it before turning off my desktop. In VirtualBox all I have to do is just close it and get back to wasting time on Ubuntu :D

Ok, before we start, read below points:

How to upgrade Ubuntu from 10.04 to 10.10, the easy way

By default Ubuntu Update Manager has the facility to detect the new Ubuntu release, which means, when you open the Update Manager it should prompt that 10.10 version is available, but this is not the case in 10.04. In 10.04 LTS(Long Term Support) the setting of release updater is set to LTS, means, it will check only if a new LTS release is available or not. 

This setting prevents 10.04 from detecting 10.10 or any other non LTS releases, this setting can be

How to recover Corrupted/Compressed BOOTMBR in Windows 7

If you are a long-term Windows user, at least once you might have come across any one of the below errors while booting Windows.

- Unable to load Operating System 
- NTLDR is missing 
- boot.ini is missing