PowerCram: BackTrack 4

Showing posts with label BackTrack 4. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Installing BackTrack 4 Final

Installing BackTrack 4 Final couldn't be easier. I've expanded just a little on the simple installation instructions from BackTrack. Follow these simple instructions and you'll be using BackTrack 4 Final in no time. NOTE: These instructions assume you are going to use the entire disk on your computer for BackTrack.

First, boot the the BackTrack 4 Final DVD. Either allow it to start on its own or select your preferred screen size.

At the command line enter startx.

Double-click install.sh on the desktop.

Select your region/city for the correct timezone, click Forward. Select your keyboard layout, then Forward. Use the default disk partitioning option of Guided. Click Forward.

Click Install and watch it go.

The installation should only take a few minutes.

When it's done it will prompt you to remove your DVD and reboot. That's it. Now you're BackTracking.

NOTE: when your system starts your default username will be root, with the password of toor.

See How to Start Networking in BackTrack 4

Friday, January 15, 2010

BackTrack 4 Final Released

The much anticipated BackTrack 4 Final has been released - FINALLY!

BackTrack 4 is the highest rated and acclaimed Linux security distribution to date. BackTrack is a Linux-based penetration testing arsenal that aids security professionals in the ability to perform assessments in a purely native environment dedicated to hacking. Regardless if you’re making BackTrack your primary operating system, booting from a LiveDVD, or using your favorite thumbdrive, BackTrack has been customized down to every package, kernel configuration, script and patch solely for the purpose of the penetration tester.

Download BackTrack 4 Final.

The guys at BackTrack also have a new and improved website. They moved BackTrack from remote-exploit.org to backtrack-linux.org. The new site is well designed and has a lot of content.

See Installing BackTrack 4 Final

Friday, December 11, 2009

How to Start Networking in BackTrack 4

Since BackTrack 4 (Pre-Release and Beta) doesn't start networking by default you have to manually start it. Here's how to start it manually:

/etc/init.d/networking start

If you have installed BackTrack 4 to disk you can enable networking to start at boot using:

update-rc.d networking defaults

And finally, you can start wireless networking in BackTrack 4 using:

/etc/init.d/NetworkManager start

* Make sure the 'N' and 'M' in NetworkManager are capitalized.

Don't forget the basic Linux command to view your IP address and network Status in BackTrack:

ifconfig

And for wireless networking:

iwconfig

More BackTrack:

Sunday, November 29, 2009

BackTrack 4 PreRelease Hard Disk Install

Since BackTrack 4 Pre-Release does not contain an installer you can follow these steps to install BT4 quickly and easily. The assumption is that you are installing BT4 on an empty disk (/dev/sda in this tutorial).

Boot to BT4 DVD (download BackTrack 4 ISO - make sure to get the BT 4 Beta and not the BT4 Pre Release). Enter commands in bold.

1. Start by creating 3 partitions on the disk, one each for boot, swap and root. Note, since your disk size is probably different than mine the number of cylinders will likely be different.

root@bt:~# fdisk /dev/sda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 19457.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-19457, default 1): <enter>
Using default value 1
Last cylinder, +cylinders or +size{K,M,G} (1-19457, default 19457): +128M

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 2
First cylinder (18-19457, default 18): <enter>
Using default value 18
Last cylinder, +cylinders or +size{K,M,G} (18-19457, default 19457): +1024M

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 3
First cylinder (150-19457, default 150): <enter>
Using default value 150
Last cylinder, +cylinders or +size{K,M,G} (150-19457, default 19457): +16000M

Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 2
Hex code (type L to list codes): 82
Changed system type of partition 2 to 82 (Linux swap / Solaris)

Command (m for help): a
Partition number (1-4): 1

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
root@bt:~#

2. Format the file systems, mount them and copy over the directory structure. Chroot into new environment.

root@bt:~# mke2fs /dev/sda1
root@bt:~# mkswap /dev/sda2
root@bt:~# swapon /dev/sda2
root@bt:~# mkreiserfs /dev/sda3
root@bt:~# mkdir /mnt/bt
root@bt:~# mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/bt/
root@bt:~# mkdir /mnt/bt/boot
root@bt:~# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/bt/boot
root@bt:~# cp --preserve -R /{bin,dev,home,pentest,root,usr,boot,etc,lib,opt,sbin,var} /mnt/bt/
root@bt:~# mkdir /mnt/bt/{mnt,tmp,proc,sys}
root@bt:~# chmod 1777 /mnt/bt/tmp/
root@bt:~# mount -t proc proc /mnt/bt/proc
root@bt:~# mount -o bind /dev /mnt/bt/dev/
root@bt:~# chroot /mnt/bt/ /bin/bash

3. Configure /etc/lilo.conf to reflect your setup.

lba32
boot=/dev/sda
root=/dev/sda3

# bitmap=/boot/sarge.bmp
# bmp-colors=1,,0,2,,0
# bmp-table=120p,173p,1,15,17
# bmp-timer=254p,432p,1,0,0
# install=bmp

# delay=20

prompt
timeout=50

# map=/boot/map

vga=0x317

image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="BT4"
read-only
initrd=/boot/splash.initrd
append=quiet

4. Fix first line in /etc/fstab, and remove unnecessary mount lines. Add the swap partition to the fstab so it gets loaded at boot time. Your fstab should look similar to this:

/dev/sda3 / reiserfs defaults 0 0 # AutoUpdate
/dev/sda2 none swap sw 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 # AutoUpdate
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0 # AutoUpdate
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0 # AutoUpdate
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0 # AutoUpdate

5. Execute lilo and reboot!

root@bt:/# lilo -v
LILO version 22.8, Copyright (C) 1992-1998 Werner Almesberger
Development beyond version 21 Copyright (C) 1999-2006 John Coffman
Released 19-Feb-2007, and compiled at 14:08:06 on May 15 2008
Ubuntu

Reading boot sector from /dev/sda
Using MENU secondary loader
Calling map_insert_data

Boot image: /boot/vmlinuz
Mapping RAM disk /boot/splash.initrd
Added BT4 *

Writing boot sector.
Backup copy of boot sector in /boot/boot.0800
root@bt:/# exit
exit
root@bt:~# reboot

BackTrack links

Monday, March 2, 2009

BT4 Install: Simplest way to install BackTrack4

Remote-exploit and BackTrack released the public Beta of BackTrack 4 the second week of February. As soon as this news came out, all sorts of people were on its download spree. Within 5 days the download count reached 49,000+ for ISO and 17,000+ for the VMWare image.

As BT4 is still in its (pre release) Beta phase a lot of packages are missing, especially VoIP and Services sections. So you will need to manually start and control the services like sshd, vnc etc. One more prominent change you should note is DHCP configurations and dhcp client (dhcpcd) are deliberately removed from startup script. BackTrack 4 starts in runlevel 2 where networking is disabled.

For BackTrack 4 the team introduced a new shell called “Debian Almquist Shell (Dash)” and /bin/sh is now a symlink to /bin/dash. It looks like “dash” shell does not support most of the semantics of legacy bash shell. As per wikipedia – Dash is a direct descendant of the NetBSD version of the Almquist Shell (ash).

Installing BackTrack needs at least 4 GB of free space on Hard drive. BT4 Beta has foot print of 856 MB without having voip packages. It could easily reach 1 GB mark in the future. So Make sure you have enough hard disk space before starting installation.

Go to the PowerCram HowTo: Backtrack 4 (Pre Release) Hard Drive Installation or BackTrack 4 Beta Hard Disk Install.