Hands on Hacking

Chapter 10UNIX

So far, we have focused on Linux hosts, with a brief look at Microsoft technology. Now we will take a look at an operating system that predated Linux—that is, UNIX. You might be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the two, and in many cases, there really is no difference, as the tools and programs that started life on UNIX systems have made their way into the GNU/Linux world. In this chapter, we will use an authentic UNIX environment, Solaris 10, as a backdrop to the various hacking activities that we explore. We will also show you some ways that you can replicate flawed UNIX services on your Linux distro, such as the Ubuntu Virtual Machine (VM) that you've been using thus far. As mentioned in Chapter 3, “Building Your Hack Box,” there are free, open source UNIX distributions that you can use for testing, and we have included a pre-built lab for use with this chapter. There are a number of for-cost UNIX distributions that you might find in a commercial setting, provided by companies such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Oracle. These companies all provide their own brand of UNIX, which usually comes bundled with a service-level agreement and technical support. This makes these UNIX versions more popular than open source operating systems like Linux to businesses who often require support from the vendor.

UNIX System Administration

If you're going to hack UNIX, you need to think just like a UNIX system administrator. We will be looking at using administrative ...