SWAT MAGAZINE ISSUE SIXTEEN: APRIL 1999 ============================================ TRINUX - THE POCKET VERSION OF LINUX ============================================ Author : Netw0rk Bug E-Mail : bug@netw0rk.freeserve.co.uk Date : April 8TH 1998 ============================================ First of all let me just say that Trinux is new to me and I am still learning to use it myself. Here I have covered some of the basics of getting started with this most excellent Linux Distribution. Now then... In the future I want to have a TRinux section in every issue of SWAT magazine where we can discuss various ideas and problems about Trinux. However, we need your help. We need your feedback on using linux. How easy did you think it was to install? Have you managed to get your madem working with it etc. Please mail us with any ideas, problems, sujestions or absolutely anything to do with Trinux. Then with your permission we can publish your mails in The Trinux section of SWAT with any other stuff about Trinux then readers can send in answers and solutions etc. So please go ahead and help us support Trinux, Please send mail to network@swateam.org For anything to do with Trinux at all. We thank you in advance. Now, efter all that we can get started. If you haven't already heard of trinux then I bet your wondering what the hell it is. Well basically. Trinux is a portable Linux distribution. It can boot from 2-3 floppy disks or a FAT 16 partition and it runs entirely in RAM. Trinux contains the latest versions of popular network monitoring and mapping tools and allows users to transform a i386 (or better) PC into powerful network (security) management workstation without modifying the underlying hardware or operating system. So Trinux basically transforms an ordinary x86 PC into a powerful network [security] management workstation without modifying the underlying hardware or operating system. So what can you do with it? Well, You have probably heard it before and I'll say it again. If you want to becomeserious about hacking then you will need to get Linux onto your system. However, this can not be as that easy, as you may need to repartition your hard disk then create new linux partitions. But with trinux you can install it on top of your existing OS. Trinux is capable of doing such tasks as: Network Troubleshooting Network Monitoring Network Mapping Packet Filtering Firewalls Firewall Testing Those are just some of the things that you can do with Trinux. Trinux contains the latest versions of popular network security tools and is useful for mapping and monitoring TCP/IP networks. Remember you can do all this from just 2 floppy disks. So it is very portable. You can take it to your friends houes or to your local school network and give it a whirl. But please, be carefullSo as you can see Trinux can be very powerfull indeed I am going to discuss how to install it on a Windows system as people with Linux already on thier system may easily do it withoug instructions. Now then. To get Trinux going on your system you first of all need to create a Trinux boot disk. How do you do this you may ask? Well you can get all the files you need from te Trinux homepage at www.trinux.org So first of all you need to get whats called a boot disk image. The latest realease is 0.49. So setr your browser to the following url ftp://ftp.trinux.org/pub/trinux/images/pre-0.49/ There are three files there. The boot disk image is boot.gz So download that. Then extract it to somewhere. Now to write the image onto a disk you will need something called rawrite which is found on the same ftp site. So point your browser to ftp://ftp.trinux.org/pub/trinux/ and it should be there. Then put the two files into the same directory. Open up a dos prompt. Then run rawrite. It will ask for the image name which is "boot" ( remember to extract boot.gz to the same folder as rawrite is) and then a drive to write it to. Of course this will be a: So, insert a disk and then press the apropriate key which I think is if i remember correctly. It will then create a boot disk for you. Now you have your boot disk you need to create your data disk(s). This is really very simple. If you are just getting started then i reccommend that you just use the datadisk from the following url: ftp://ftp.trinux.org/pub/trinux/images/pre-0.49/ The third file "trinux.zip" is for the version which runs of your hard disk. I will not bother to discuss this for the moment as the portable version can be more usefull. All a data disk is, is a collecion of various packages. There's no magic to creating Trinux data disks. All you do is format an MSDOS/Win95 disk and copy the package files (.tgz) over. Netbase.tgz is required for almost everything. To create your own data disks just goto the packages section of the ftp site and downlaod what you want. You can have as many packages on as many disks as you want. There are loads of packages that you can use which have all sorts of tools such as: The netbase package has: arp - manipulate ARP table dhcpcd - DHCP client ftp - file transfer hostname - set hostname ifconfig - configure interface ipfwadm - manipulate kernel packet filtering rules netstat - network statistics nslookup - perform DNS queries ping - ICMP echo route - manipulate routing table telnet - remote login whois - retrieve domain info from InterNIC netmap.tgz has : drpcscan - RPC scanning utility fwping - ping with lots of options mscan - scan for vulnerabilities (statd, pop3, bind, etc.) nc - Hobbits netcat [1.1] neped - scan for Linux promiscuous NICs nfs_check - check NFS shares nmap - versatile port scanner by fyodor (www.insecure.org) [1.51] rdns - brute force queries of DNS records rpcinfo - the standard built-in RPC prober snmpget - view SNMP variables snmpset - set SNMP variables snmpwalk - dump the entire MIB strobe - fast tcp_connect() scanner [1.03] tcp_scan - tcp_connect() scanner from SATAN / captures banners traceroute - traceroute udp_scan - udp scanner from SATAN z0ne - perform DNS Zone transfers Those are just the tools in 2 of the packages available. I currently have 25 packages in my collection There are simply too many tools available to list So use the datadisk that is with the boot.gz and put the packages onto a disk then off you go. Boot from the boot disk, eventually it will ask you for any datadisks, you just put your disk in and it will ask you to press enter, do so. It may then ask you for a new password. So put in a new password. How do you configure Trinux you may ask? Well, it will ask you for the following when you boot into it: IP Address Subnet Mask Broadcast Network Add Gateway Addr DNS Server If you are not sure what to put in then just leave them blank by pressing enter. You will then be at the Trinux command prompt. Then its up to you to learn what you can do with it. I have covered the basics of getting started with Trinux. I myself am new to this and am still learning. Maybe we can have a Trinux section in SWAT every month where we can discuss various issues and uses for it. Maybe even solve peoples problems with using Trinux. So please, we need your help and support. IF you have any ideas, guides, problems or basically anything that you want to say to us about it then please go ahead and mail us about it. We can then put your mail int he next issue of SWAT in the Trinux section. Please send mail to both of the follwoing addresses for mail about Trinux network@swateam.org firestarter@swateam.org