Local Area Security Linux 0.4a

Anonymous Coward writes "Local Area Security Linux is a small 'live CD' distribution based on Knoppix that aims at being less than 185MB so it will fit on a MiniCD. It is now 107MB with FluxBox as the window manager. It contains about 100 security (forensics, penetration testing, firewall, intrusion detection, etc.) tools including Ethereal and Nessus. See a screenshot here."

Comments

Security?

[willy134]

So is this a security or hacking cd? Seems like some good tools to me.

No Damn Blaster...

[Captain_Loser]

Now, how many tools like this do you see for a windows, or any closed source environment. Its tools like these that keep linux away from crap like this balster worm. Linux isn't perfect, but it learns from its mistakes, thats what makes it superior to and closed source software

live CDs are nice

[Dark Lord Seth]

Live CDs like knoppix are all very lovely but when's the day that I can roll out my own live CDs without TOO much effort? Just select the packages you want, kernel, drivers, etc, wait as the program churns out a nice ISO for you which you can burn to a CD and voila, insta-Linux! Now that would seriously rock as you can simply modify all the basics as you see fit and can easily alter the whole deal for bugfixes.

Excellent. :)

[numbski]

I'm getting to really love these things. If it's got ssh, scp, ethereal, port scanner, and a few other goodies, this thing's gonna rock.

USB flash version

[Kegetys]

How about an version that you can (easily) put on an USB flash memory card and boot from there?

Re:USB flash version

[Kegetys]

Hmm.. My GA-8IGX mobo has support for it, based on the i845 chipset which is quite old already. I think there certainly are alot of systems that support it, its just not a very commonly known feature.

Forensics utilities are somewhat useless

[dodell]

In the real world, you don't always have permission to take a box down to perform forensics. Rebooting == downtime. Booting into Linux from a CD to inspect == downtime. When you *are* granted permission to take down a box for forensics analysis (you have to get permission in a search warrant for this, or permission from the company that wants you to investigate, but this is rarely feasable), you'll probably be working for a large firm that can afford forensics tools that cost tons of cash and do much more advanced forensics analysis than the forensics software for Linux.

This sounds more like another goodies CD for people to mess around with at school. Or perhaps something to give people Linux demos with. Who knows. I wouldn't market it as a forensics tool, though.

Re:Forensics utilities are somewhat useless

[chef_raekwon]

i agree with your statement to some extent...you won't be downing a server to run some silly tools that you can run on the server...

but, if you are a "security consultant", you simply need to show up, on-site with your mini-cd, and proclaim that all matters will be quickly resolved...as soon as you comandeer the secretary's pc.....
(and quickly reboot it.) .....
i dunno.

Re:Forensics utilities are somewhat useless

[frostman]

Taking a box offline may not be an option in a lot of environments, but I can think of several cases in which this would be very useful.

1. Small/home/project server
   One of my private servers was taken over once. Very un-nice thing, resulting in several months of frustrating interaction with network provider until we figured out we'd been rootkitted. We reinstalled everything from scratch and did our best to lock it down, but it still would have been nice to have a handy forensics tool to pop on the 'doze box down the hall.
2. Intranet server
   If you have a server on your intranet and you want to run checks on it (say, to make sure you're safe against malicious/disgruntled employees in the billing department), you can pretty easily have a few hours of scheduled downtime at night.
3. Multiple identical servers
   I worked at a company that had a number of identically-configured web boxes. That was the whole point: you could take one out whenever you liked. Since the config was identical, you could take one out, run whatever tests you wanted, and if you found a problem you could fix the servers in rotation.
4. Clueless company
   If you work for someone who has no real sysadmin, and they sometimes expect you to do sysadmin-like things, it could be very nice to have such a MiniCD handy. If that's the case you probably don't have a forensics-kit laptop handy, nor expensive tools.

Of course, always get permission first.

185Meg? That's old sk00l!

[Tumbleweed]

Newer mini-CDs now fit up to 210Meg, FYI.

And they have R/W versions, as well. Nifty!

I always thought something like these would make great floppy replacements, but it looks like USB flash drives are gonna do that first. That's OK - solid state storage rawks, and their capacity is already well over that of even the 210Meg CD-R(/W) mini-CDs.

Here's to hoping they come out with FireWire '2' (IEEE1394.b) flash drives! *cheers*

Knoppix can already do this!

[purplebear]

You should be able to customize what is on the knoppix cd fairly easy already. If you look at the Knoppix cheatcodes, for manipulating hardware detection, there is a note in there about remastering the cd:

If you wish to remaster the CD, please don't forget to specify
-b KNOPPIX/boot.img
for the german version of the bootfloppy, or
-b KNOPPIX/boot-en.img
for the english version, as option to mkisofs. Otherwise your CD
won't be bootable. The directory KNOPPIX, containig the compressed
filesystem file "KNOPPIX", must be located in the top level
directory of the CD.

So, just take the knoppix ISO, copy to disk and modify away. Then use mkisofs with the -b flag to make your new custom ISO. :)

Re:More suicide bombing in Israel?

[spacecowboy420]

Why is it flame-bait when someone states an obvious fact? I have no problem with jews or any other religion/group of people - but more and more I am finding it hard not to be an anti-semite. As the parent poster pointed out, why do the Jews never learn?

It seems to me that everyone that answers a question by invoking God (Allah etc..) you are sentencing yourself and your children to death. Doesn't the fact that deaths caused by religious fundamentalism out number any disease (plaque, aids etc..)combined click in the mind of the most logic challenge that this is not the correct path? Doesn't murdering people - at all - tell you that you are as wrong as the murderers you are fighting?

Want peace? Remove god from the equation and you'll be on the short path (not there, but almost - you need to establish secular morality first)

no, I didn't forget the AC button, I truly believe what I say, mod me the way you like, but I speak truth.

Re:let me get this straight

[MacEnvy]

I'm using it (firewalled, proxied, spoofed) to test out the OS, not as a security platform. I'm just sitting here at home fooling around. Nice joke, though.