Enterprise Unix Roundup — Mandrake Says Thin Is In Page 2

Security Roundup

• The Internet Software Consortium's DHCP software suffers from a pair of flaws that "could leave users at risk of denial-of-service or code execution attacks." If you're running a Unix DHCP server of some kind, there's a good chance you're running the ISC's DHCP software. At press time, patches are in for Fedora and SUSE. More are sure to follow.
• The only other widely reported patch this week is to the Linux kernel, thanks to a crashing bug we noted last week. Updates are available from Mandrake, Conectiva, En Garde Secure Linux, tinysofa Linux, Trustix, TurboLinux, and SUSE.
• The SGI security page contains four sets of patches that address flaws in assorted versions of the SGI Advanced Linux Environment.

Tips of the Trade

Dial-up users might feel like the whole world has gone to broadband, leaving them in the dust. However, it hasn't. Even in the United States, the majority of users still access the Internet via dial up. And, yes, many networks still have a place for a dialup server: connection sharing, periodic timed-batch uploads, and direct WAN connections.

But setting up a Linux dial-up server can be a bit of a headache. Rassling chat scripts is hardly anyone's idea of a good time. For sophisticated, easy dial-up administration, try IPCop. IPCop is a full-featured, robust firewall/gateway/router. The administrative interface is a well-organized Web-based GUI, so you can easily set up a headless IPCop box and administer it remotely.

Use the PPP Settings (point-to-point protocol) section to set up analog modems, ISDN, and PPPoE (PPP over Ethernet, which is a type of DSL service). By using profiles, you can set up any number of devices and connections.

One of the most vexing bits is figuring out which COM port your modem uses. Most modems use /dev/tty0-3, which equal COM1-4, but some oddballs are way up in the double digits. To find yours, look in dmesg:

$ dmesg | grep tty
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A

"ttyS00" is the equivalent of "COM1" on Windows and DOS systems.

IPCop has excellent documentation, and all the goodies are on IPCop's home page.

Carla Schroder writes the Tips of the Trade section of Enterprise Unix Roundup. She also appears on Crossnodes every Wednesday, and is the author of the site's popular Scripting Clinic, which deals with Unix/Linux scripting issues.

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