Hack Linux

[jjmcray]

Anyone know how to hack in to a Linux machine? Not for illegal purposes... I just have another machine running Linux next to this one and I'd just like to test it out and stuff.

[Blahages]

Depends. For a machine you have Physical Access to, the funniest one I have found is to hit "e" at the grub screen to edit the boot menu, and remove "quiet splash" and append "single" or in some cases "1" and boot the machine up. It logs you in with root access to the machine, without a password. Good to know if you *forget* your password.

Do that, then type "passwd" and enter the new password, and you've changed the root password. Fun.

[jjmcray]

What about accessing the files through another computer or something like that?

[Blahages]

No Idea how to "hack" it if you don't have shares set up. You can share files amongst the machines by changing some settings, though, just like you can with Windows.

[TheMatrix]

if you know c or c++, write your own modification of your distro. linux is open source, so this is easy. try it, you might succeed. i hope you don't have malicious intent, you can do lots with modifying the source...

[darkwoon]

Anyone know how to hack in to a Linux machine? Not for illegal purposes... I just have another machine running Linux next to this one and I'd just like to test it out and stuff.
Hack as "circumvent protection" ? If not for illegal purposes, you may want to try security scanners like nmap (http://nmap.org/), that are great tools to test your systems security, being linux or otherwise. Another nice tool to test the security of your systems is Nessus (http://www.nessus.org/nessus/). It is a popular security scanner.

Apart from that, breaking security of a Linux system is no different than breaking security of any other operating system: exploit buffer overflows, lost pointers, software bugs, etc. This is something that requires intimate knowledge of the inner working of the system, and requires a lot of technical skills to succeed.

If you plan on hardening your Linux system, again, standard rules apply: set up regular security audits through security scanners, use hardening tools like Bastille Linux, keep access rights under control (SELinux is a must for servers), don't run services you don't need, use automated auditing of your log files (for example with Tiger), have good firewall rules that open only ports needed, etc.

[CaptainObvious]

This thread is hella old.

:locked: