Information Security

apache start – Backtrack – Services – HTTPD – apache start

SecurityLeave a comment

Backtrack Linux offers a lot to people of all skill sets and I really appreciate the thought that the developers have put behind making this a operating system platform that is friendly to all. In my experience there are penetration testers or information security enthusiasts of all levels and having Backtrack as a platform to learn from is great. The apache start menu item in Backtrack simply starts the Apache web server and is explained in more detail below.

Information Security

ipcalc – Backtrack 5 – Miscellaneous – Miscellaneous Network – ipcalc

SecurityLeave a comment

A tool that is more than likely not used very often in Backtrack is the ipcalc which is a command line to that will quickly provide you broadcast address, network address, netmask, and Cisco wildcard mask. If you do a lot of Backtrack Linux installations that each require different IP information for various networks this tool can be really useful to verify settings made in the networks file in Ubuntu/Backtrack. I used to find myself breaking out a iPhone IP calculator on a regular basis and while I still do use that application I prefer ipcalc from the command line if its readily available. Below are details regarding ipcalc and the various switches available to it.

Information Security

smbclient : Backtrack 5: Non Menu Items: CLI Commands: smbclient

SecurityLeave a comment

The smbclient command line application included in Backtrack Linux is a staple for pentesting. I would imagine anyone that has done a pentest has used it to quickly verify SMB (Server Message Block) or CIFS (Common Internet File System) shares. The smbclient manpage describes it as a FTP-like client to access SMB/CIFS resources on servers. Below we describe varios smbclient commands in details to provide a basic understanding of its capabilities and what output will look like when using this tool in Backtrack Linux.

Information Security

smbclient – Backtrack 5 – Information Gathering – Network Analysis – SMB Analysis – smbclient.py

SecurityLeave a comment

In the Backtrack menu under Information Gathering > Network Analysis > SMB Analysis there is a menu item named smbclient which should actually be named smbclient.py. While the smbclient.py script does actually use smbclient it provides a different interface, commands, no switches, etc. making it fairly different than smbclient itself. While both smbclient and smbclient.py are supposed to provide the same end results they don’t because smbclient.py is extremely buggy so I will be writing an article on each so there is no confusion.

Technology Errors

smbclient Backtrack Linux – sh: line 0: cd: /pentest/python/impacket-examples/: No such file or directory

ErrorsLeave a comment

When attempting to launch smbclient via the Backtrack menu in Backtrack Linux version 5 release 3 you will receive an error stating there is no such file or directory. It appears some of the paths have changed between Backtrack Linux releases and the menu item for smbclient was not updated. I personally prefer smbclient from the command line however if you like the smbclient.py python script then fixing it is easy as noted in the details below.