10 Best Security Live CD Distros

Ant writes to tell us Darknet has a summary of the ten best LiveCD distributions dealing with security. With links to download and a little information about each one." An great overview of some handy tools, some you know and probably a few you don't.

Comments

Backtrack rules...

[Daxster]

I've used Auditor extensively in the past year or so, and played around with Slax. Slax is buggy and definitely lacking polish, but it's modular system of scripts and packages make it perfect for a combination of whoppix and Auditor. Now if only proper ndiswrapper modules were included...

Pros & Cons of Live CDs

[Anonymous Coward]

Advantage of Live CD is that you can try it without installing anything into a computer. The disadvantage is its very slow and very limited in functionality. Very frustrating for every day use. Nothing can beat the performance of an installed version.

It is very good to be security conscious. If you really want to benefit by the advances in Unix, try a secure OS like Tomahawk Desktop.

Hmmm

[ShaolinTiger]

Still up for me?

Load Averages 8.31 6.93 6.18

Fastest whore on the block

[arrrrg]

Coral Cache

slashdotted top ten

[Anonymous Coward]

1. BackTrack
2. Operator
3. PHLAK
4. Auditor
5. L.A.S Linux
6. Knoppix-STD
7. Helix
8. F.I.R.E
9. nUbuntu
10. INSERT Rescue Security Toolkit
Extra - Knoppix

Re:slashdotted top ten

[zerocool^]

I'm running a Knoppix-STD mirror at the Virginia Tech CS Dept Mirror. I've emailed them back and forth, but they haven't added me to their site. Try not to pound the K-STD site; they don't have a lot of bandwidth. And if you want to download it, I'm probably as reliable, if not more so, than the other mirrors listed.

~Will

Re:*YAWN* ;^O

[RLiegh]

My guess is that there are only two Live-CD BSD distributions (to the best of my knowledge, at least); freesbie (which isn't security oriented) and one from NetBSD (which I forget the name of, and I'm not even sure is being made any more). There is no Live-CDs from the OpenBSD camp at all.

The article (and therefore, discussion) is about Live-CDs.

Re:At least read the title of the articel

[GomezAdams]

OpenBSD and FreeBSD have live distros. Don't know about NetBSD. Google is your friend.

Re:*YAWN* ;^O

[kv9]

with NetBSD you can build your own. there also is some desktop centric live cd called NeWBIE

OliveBSD?

[wick3t]

Although it's not a linux distribution, surely any live CD based on OpenBSD deserves a mention!

Re:How about "Live USB Key" distros?

[Mark Clegg]

I remember reading about on some time ago. - http://runt.mybox.org/

Re:How about "Live USB Key" distros?

[farker haiku]

Check out http://slax.linux-live.org/, it's a 185 MB distro. Or you can roll your own.

Insert Linux

[swtaarrs]

The best one I've found is Insert Linux. Once you download, burn, and boot from the ISO, there's a menu option in fluxbox to install to a usb key. All you have to do is make sure the the first partition on the drive is at least 64MB and it'll do the rest for you, formatting the partition, copying files, and installing the bootloader. I haven't used it a whole lot, but they pack a lot into 60MB.

Re:Insert Linux

[dylan_-]

Probably /dev/sdb or c. Simple way to check: Leave the thing unplugged on boot. Start up a terminal and type "dmesg"...see what it ends with? Now insert the drive. Type "dmesg" at terminal again. Should have added some stuff about usb-storage where it names the device.

Adios / UML

[Locarius]

I am suprised that they did not include Adios. The nicest feature is the ability to run multiple Linux kernels in userspace (User Mode Linux). It also comes with heaps of security tools on the LiveCD.

INSERT is also part of the Ultimate Boot CD.

[Richard Steiner]

The Ultimate Boot CD is a nice collection of memory, CPU, partition, filesystem, benchmarking, and BIOS utilities, and the "full" version of the UBCD contains INSERT as well as all of the other stuff. Quite a nice collection of utilities and diagnostic software on one CD.