One of the first things computer users, who are concerned with security, learn is that multiple overwrites with ones and zeros are required in order to wipe data to the extent that it is unrecoverable by any forensic analysis tools. According to this article on Softpedia, on which I stumbled while searching for something else,…
If there are still references to device nodes for block devices, as they are set by the kernel, for example /dev/hda, in /etc/fstab, you should seriously consider replacing them with the volume’s label or its UUID. Even if you use an LVM setup, the /boot partition shouldn’t be referenced by its device node.
I’ve used the phrase “writable by the webserver” numerous times throughout this blog, without ever bothering to explain in detail what this means. Yesterday, I received an email asking me exactly that, so I decided to finally write a post about it and use it as a reference whenever I use the aforementioned phrase. I’ll…
In the past, having used the “Connect to server” feature in GNOME, you could easily access the remote server’s filesystem from within Nautilus, but it was impossible to access it from the command line (please correct me if I miss something here). Now GNOME uses gvfs. As soon as GNOME connects to the remote server,…
This small HOWTO describes how to configure vsftpd for an anonymous FTP site in order to make files available across your local network or the internet. The scenario this guide is based on is to quickly make a linux distribution’s installation tree available across the local network in order to be used for a network…
In my opinion, the biggest problem of the tar format (‘ustar‘) is that it does not store the checksums of the files it contains. So, in order to be able to verify the contents of the tar archive, you either need to keep the original data on the hard drive and compare the archive contents…
A few days ago, I had decided to revise my data backup methods, so to be able to easily recover as much data as possible after a partial corruption of the medium, a DVD that is, on which the data has been stored. I should clarify that by corruption I by no means include the…
Until now I have been creating partition images with Partimage, which has never failed. Another very popular tool nowadays is CloneZilla. This software, which happens to include partimage among various other utilities, has wider filesystem support and a better set of features – taking/restoring backups across the network is supported. The fact that this is…
I have already mentioned two excellent open source data recovery utilities, TestDisk and PhotoRec, in an older post. Today I came across some others; some lists of other tools actually. I didn’t have the time to try any of them, but here is some info and some useful links to get started with.
LinuxQuestions.org has set up a wiki page which contains information about utilities that can convert CD images from one format to the other. This compilation will probably be useful to Windows users who occasionally use Linux or have recently migrated to Linux. It is widely known that there are numerous windows utilities that save the…