Operation Aurora exploit in Google Attack

As publicly disclosed by Google, an attack hit Google and other few companies, is now described as Operation Aurora. Why is this attack called Operation Aurora? A post titling, Operation Aurora: Clues in the Code at Secure works is good read.  (If someone has more good reference then drop your comments below.)

A post at praetorianprefect.com has video that shows Aurora Exploit in action using metasploit.

Twitter is over capacity

As usual, I was checking out my http://twitter/techsutram account and twitter presented me with surprising over capacity message.

Windows PowerShell – a free eBook from Microsoft

Yesterday, one of my friends called me to ask if I have any book on Windows PowerShell. I told him that I don’t have any book on Windows PowerShell, however, I do remember that there is free eBook available from Microsoft. So below are the links for downloading Windows PowerShell eBook from Microsoft and its associated demo files.

Download Windows PowerShell eBook + Associated Demo files

Invalid disk device for 'cdsdisk’ error

I was trying to setup shared storage between two VMs (Linux) for my virtual environment. Hence, I added another hard disk (or shared storage) between those two virtual boxes.

However, before creating VxVM DiskGroup, when I tried to initialize the shared storage (disk) that I configured between two VMs then one of the errors that surprised me was…

“VxVM vxdisksetup ERROR V-5-2-1814 sdb: Invalid disk device for 'cdsdisk'”

Below is list of CLIs that I used to circumvent this issue and create a DiskGroup...

--------------------------Start Of Shell-----------------------------------
[root@ts ~]# vxdisk -o alldgs list
DEVICE       TYPE            DISK         GROUP        STATUS
sda          auto:none       -            -            online invalid
sdb          auto:none       -            -            online invalid
[root@ts ~]# /etc/vx/bin/vxdisksetup -i sdb
VxVM vxdisksetup ERROR V-5-2-1814 sdb: Invalid disk device for 'cdsdisk' format
[root@ts ~]# vxdisk list sdb
Device:    sdb
devicetag: sdb
type:      auto
info:      format=none
flags:     online ready private autoconfig invalid
pubpaths:  block=/dev/vx/dmp/sdb char=/dev/vx/rdmp/sdb
guid:      -
udid:
VMware%5FVirtual%20disk%5FOTHER%5FDISKS%5Fts.ts.com%5F%2Fdev%2Fsdb
site:      -
Multipathing information:
numpaths:   1
sdb     state=enabled
[root@ts ~]# vxdctl enable
[root@ts ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 8589 MB, 8589934592 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1044 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              14          78      522112+  82  Linux swap
/dev/sda3              79        1044     7759395   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 2147 MB, 2147483648 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 261 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb4               1         259     2080386    5  Extended
[root@ts ~]# /usr/lib/vxvm/diag.d/vxscsi -g sdb
Cannot get disk geometry on sdb !
[root@ts ~]# /etc/vx/bin/vxdisksetup -i sdb format=sliced
[root@ts ~]# vxdg init dg01 sdb cds=off
[root@ts ~]# vxdisk -o alldgs list
DEVICE       TYPE            DISK         GROUP        STATUS
sda          auto:none       -            -            online invalid
sdb          auto:sliced     sdb          dg01     online
[root@ts ~]# vxdg list
NAME         STATE           ID
dg01         enabled              1263886728.28.ts.ts.com
--------------------------End Of Shell------------------------------------

It looks like I have added IDE disk as shared storage to VMs instead of SCSI disk. However, setting disk format to sliced resolved this issue for me.

Add / Remove Solaris packages automatically

Those who deal with Solaris often require to install and uninstall packages. However, sometimes it becomes boredom to press ‘y’ or ‘yes’ every time we try to install or uninstall or remove multiple software packages. So if you are tired with pressing ‘y’ or ‘yes’ each and every time then simply pipe ‘yes’ CLI to ‘pkgrm’ or ‘pkgadd’ CLI in Solaris.

--------------------------Start Of Shell-----------------------------------

ts:~# yes | pkgadd –d.

.

.

.

ts:~#  yes | pkgrm SomeSamplePacakageName

.

.

.

--------------------------End Of Shell------------------------------------

NOTE: Use it cautiously.

That’s it.

Follow twitter.com/techsutram account

Today, I have decided to share new micro-updates from www.techsutram.com blog to new twitter account ‘twitter.com/techsutram’. As you can understand, this will help me to segregate my personal stuff from my tech blog. So follow techsutram.com on http://twitter.com/techsutram. 

I will keep on posting micro-updates on my twitter ID ‘twitter.com/scimandar’. I will reserve this ID for my own stuff.

 

I would like to thank my followers at ‘twitter.com/scimandar’ and also hope to see them on ‘twitter.com/techsutram’ as well.

Software testing! What not to do….?

There are lots of articles and books available on web that tells software test engineers what to do while testing software. However, hardly someone focuses on things that should not be done while testing the software. The thought inferred by title of this post is always untouched. So below are few points that I come up with that should not be done while testing software.

1. Not concentrating on automating test cases in long run
2. Using non-standardized tools (in your Organization) while automating test cases
3. Adding too many test scenarios in single automated test script that makes it difficult or cumbersome if only one of those test scenarios are failing.
4. Skipping pre-conditions while designing test cases that lead to ambiguity while executing a test case.
5. Making test cases too generic or independent so that whole workflow (of feature/module) becomes of no use
6. Not providing appropriate Severity/Priority to a defect in bug tracking system.
7. Not providing exact steps or providing ambiguous steps to reproduce a defect. These will unnecessary waste time of developer as well as software test engineer.
8. Not defining proper scope of software testing in test plan.
9. Not understanding a feature/product before executing test cases
10. Not able to understand or troubleshoot test-bed where feature/product being tested
11. Making too many assumptions while testing software product/feature
12. Not having user centric approach (customer focus) while testing a product/feature

I understand that these are only high level points and we can still add few more. If you want to add something to the above list then drop it in comments below.

Server Virtualization Options that are available today

Virtualization! What does it mean? If you are not aware of this concept then article at http://www.kernelthread.com/publications/virtualization/ is good read.

However, below is the list of virtualization providers that I can think of.

+ VMware – VMware Player and VMware Server are one of the free products that are available. However, it requires registration. Other virtualization products are also available.

+ Xen – An open source industry standard for virtualization.

+ Citrix XenServer ( Based on Xen Hypervisor) – An enterprise-class, cloud-proven server virtualization and its free.

+ Microsoft Virtualization (Hyper-V) – It has now become part of Windows Server 2008

+ Parallels Virtuozzo - Creates isolated virtual environments (VE) or containers on a single physical server and OS instance.

+ KVM – An Open Source full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware

+ Sun VirtualBox  – An Open Source virtualization product.

+ Solaris Zones, LDOMs

+ IBM PowerVM

+ OpenVZ – A container-based virtualization for Linux.

+ Linux-VServer – A virtualization for GNU/Linux systems

+ QEMU – A generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer.

+ UML – User Mode Linux

Are you aware of any other virtualization provider? Then do let everyone know in comments below.