It can be installed either locally or on your webserver.

The easiest place to install Skipfish is on Linux, so I’ll go over installing it on Ubuntu.

Requirements for Skipfish

You need the following software installed in order to install Skipfish:

• GNU C Compiler
• GNU Make
• GNU C Library (including development headers)
• zlib (including development headers)
• OpenSSL (including development headers)
• libidn (including development headers)

The first three are installed by default on Ubuntu. In case they’re not install them with this command in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install gcc make libc6 libc6-dev

To install the last three requirements, enter this command:

sudo apt-get install libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libidn11

Building Skipfish

Download Skipfish

Download the latest version of Skipfish from here:
http://code.google.com/p/skipfish/downloads/list

The current version (as of this writing) was 1.27b [LINK].

Save the file someplace, and then either right-click on it in the file manager and choose “Extract here“.

Or go to the directory where you saved it and enter this:

tar xzf skipfish-1.27b.tgz

Setting Paths

You may or may not need this step, but this will set the paths for header files and library files:

export CFLAGS="-I/usr/include/"
export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/lib/ssl/engines -L/usr/lib/ -L/usr/lib/ssl/"

Compiling Skipfish

Next, compile Skipfish. Enter the directory that was extracted earlier, and use “make” to start the build process:

cd skipfish
nice make

Note: nice prevents make from monopolizing your system’s CPU.

Here’s the result:

cc -L/usr/lib/ssl/engines -L/usr/lib/ -L/usr/lib/ssl/ -L/usr/local/lib/ -L/opt/local/lib skipfish.c -o skipfish -O3 -Wno-format -Wall -funsigned-char -g -ggdb -I/usr/local/include/ -I/opt/local/include/ -I/usr/include/ -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=0 \
	      http_client.c database.c crawler.c analysis.c report.c -lcrypto -lssl -lidn -lz
 
See dictionaries/README-FIRST to pick a dictionary for the tool.
 
Having problems with your scans? Be sure to visit:
http://code.google.com/p/skipfish/wiki/KnownIssues

After you do this, there should be an executable file named “skipfish” in the current directory. If not, or if there was an error, you probably are missing a requirement or a path is incorrectly specified.

Using Skipfish

This is just a basic introduction.

In the “skipfish” directory, enter these commands:

touch dictionaries/empty.wl
ln -s dictionaries/empty.wl skipfish.wl
mkdir ../out
./skipfish -o ../out/ http://example.com

This creates a blank wordlist file, and an output directory, and then launches Skipfish to scan the specified webserver. (Replace example.com with your webserver address. Make sure you have permission to scan that address.)

Hit Ctrl+c to stop the scan.

Then view the result with Firefox (not Safari or Chrome):

firefox ../out/index.html

I’ll have a separate post on using Skipfish, along with screenshots.

Resources

Google Skipfish
Skipfish FAQ

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The problem is downloading a new 700MB file daily seems wasteful, and that’s 21GB of download per month, which your ISP may or may not like.

The solution is zsync, a binary file sychronization program.

Introduction to zsync

zsync uses the same algorithm as another file-syncing program, rsync. But zsync is better than rsync for file distribution where one file is going to multiple clients outside of a single organization. Also:

• zsync doesn’t require a program to run on the server. It runs on the client.
• zsync handles compressed files well.

You might wonder how zsync could possibly work with binary files, since a single small change can render the whole file totally different, and thus not practicably syncable. The answer is the zsync has special handling for gzipped files (files compressed with the gzip program).

Installing zsync

First, if you haven’t already, add the universe repository to your list of software repositories. You can do this in System > Administration > Software Sources.

Then install zysync either by clicking here from Firefox or entering the following from the terminal:

sudo apt-get install zysnc

Using zsync

It only makes sense to use zysnc if you already have a full ISO image file that you want to update. So, first download an Ubuntu ISO image file.

Then, when there’s an update you want to get, go to the directory where the full image file is in a terminal. Then type zsync followed by the HTTP address of where the .zsync file is. (The .zsync file helps zsynch to correctly identify and apply updates.)

For the most often used Ubuntu CD image (the 32-bit desktop image), that would be:

zsync http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/lucid-desktop-i386.iso.zsync

You can find other .zsync files in the same place where the CD images are at Ubuntu downloads.

Note: At the end of this procedure, the updated file will have the same name as the old file. The old file is kept and saved with a “.zs-old” filename suffix.

zsync at work

zysnc first downloads the .zsync file.

Then it starts downloading the actual image file:

downloading from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/lucid-desktop-i386.iso:
###################- 96.3% 43.8 kBps

The image file is saved with a .part suffix during the download. If the download is interrupted, just run zsync again. It’ll pick up where it left off:

Read lucid-desktop-i386.iso.part. Target 92.4% complete.
downloading from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/lucid-desktop-i386.iso:
##################-- 94.8% 43.8 kBps         A

Once it’s done, it verifies the file:

verifying download...checksum matches OK
used 663175168 local, fetched 55365870

Saving the .zsync file

The .zsync file is about 1.4MB. You can avoid downloading it again by using the -k option followed by the .zsync file.

If the local file has a different than that referenced in the .zsync file, specify the local filename with the -i option.

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Here’s how to create a boot CD for Ubuntu.

This’ll let you try the OS just by rebooting and without installing anything on your computer. This is also called a “live CD” because you can use the OS mostly like you would if it were installed. I.e., it’s not just a setup program, but the real thing.

Note: Lucid is still in alpha testing so don’t install it if you’re not an enthusiast or if you have data on your hard drive you’d like to keep.

Get the ISO image for Ubuntu

Before you burn the live boot CD, you need the right CD image. Ubuntu CD images are provided in “ISO” format.

The daily build for Ubuntu (regardless of what the next version is) is here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily/current/

The daily build incorporates any bug fixes that were applied in a given day.

This the direct link to the daily Intel 386 (32-bit) CD image. Save it someplace.

Other releases (including final releases) can be found here:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/

Burning the CD with Brasero

Once you have downloaded the ISO CD image, you can burn the CD.

The default application for burning CDs in Ubuntu is Brasero. It’s in Applications > Sound & Video > Brasero Disc Burner.

When the Brasero window opens, click on the “Burn image” button (the last one):

This brings up the Image Burning Setup window. In the “Select a disc image to write” section, click to select the ISO image:

Then insert a writable CD. You can use a CD+R, DVD+R or DVD-R. If you use a DVD, the extra space will be wasted:

You can set the CD burn speed if you like in Properties. I just left it as it is. Click Burn to write the boot CD image.

Brasero burns the CD. You can either close it out or make another copy:

Rewritable CDs and DVDs

You can use a CD+RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RW or DVD-RAM, with Brasero as well. This let’s you write the CD image again without having to use a new CD everytime. This is especially important with daily builds because otherwise you’d use up 150 CD or so burning images.

You don’t have to blank the rewritable disc before using it. Just insert it when Brasero asks for a writable CD. It’ll erase the CD before writing.

If you want to blank a CD manually, select Tools > Blank from the main Brasero window:

Booting with the Ubuntu CD

After the CD’s burned, you might have to set your BIOS settings to make your computer boot from the CD instead of your hard drive.

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Here’s how to install it on Ubuntu. This works for Karmic Koala 9.10.

The short way with the command line

In the file /etc/apt/sources.list add the following line:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

In a terminal, get a key and refresh the repository index:

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 4E5E17B5
apt-get update

And install Chromium:

apt-get install chromium-browser

Installing Chromium: a walkthrough

Here’s the long version.

Normally, packages in Ubuntu are installed from the main Ubuntu repositories. But there’s also the concept of “Personal Package Archives” for experimental software. To use these, you have to specify PPA information to Ubuntu.

In a terminal, add the keys for the Chromium PPA:

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 4E5E17B5

Here’s the output:

Open up System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager. Then, in Synaptic, choose Settings > Repositories.

Click on the “Other Software” tab and then click “Add”:

Enter the following into the dialog:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

When you click on “Add Source”, a new repository is added which will pull in Chromium updates:

Synaptic will tell you you need to reload package information:

Click on the Reload button in the upper left-hand corner of Synaptic. Synaptic will reload package information:

After that’s done, enter “chromium” in the Quick Search box, right-click on Chromium Browser, and and select “Mark for Installation”:

Synaptic prompts you to mark additional required packages for installation. Choose Apply:

Note: don’t choose the “chromium” package. That’s actually an old Linux-based game:

Click on Apply in the toolbar in Synaptic. Verify your choice in the Summary dialog:

Synaptic downloads the package files:

And installs them:

The changes are applied:

To run Chromium, choose “Chromium Web Browser” from the Internet menu in Applications:

These instructions are for adding the daily builds PPA for Chromium, meaning that you’ll get updates for it every day if you want. For me, the version I’m running is fine, so I don’t click on the Update button when Update Manager shows up.

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I have the top panel set to auto-hide. But, the other day, it hung for some reason. Here’s how to fix it.

The Ubuntu Panel

The top panel contains the Applications, Places (file manager and bookmarks), and System (preferences) menus. It can also contain applets, time/weather, notifications, or anything else you want to put there. The bottom panel contains a button for each running application, and a desktop switcher (there are multiple desktops in Ubuntu and other Linuxes).

Auto-hide not working

I usually set the top panel to hide automatically. This opens up 24 pixels more of screen space, which I find handy. You can set this by right-clicking on the panel, selecting Properties, and checking the Autohide checkbox:

Normally, after setting Autohide on, it stays out of your way. When you move the mouse pointer all the way to the top of the screen it appears and it’ll stay visible as long as you stay on the panel.

Once in a while, it’ll stay visible even when you move your mouse away. That’s usually fixable by moving the mouse to the top of the screen and back down again.

But, the other day, it wouldn’t hide. I could turn Autohide on and off again, but it would just stay there.

The solution: you can just kill the program responsible for the panel. Once you kill it, it’ll start again, so you won’t lose the panel for the duration of your session.

To kill it, you just enter the following into a terminal:

killall gnome-panel

You can also open GNOME System Monitor, a graphical process viewer, from System > Administration > System Monitor. The Processes tab should already be visible. Click on the Process Name column to sort by that column. Then find “gnome-panel”. It’s a sub-task of “gnome-session”. Select it, and click on the End Process button in the lower right hand corner of System Monitor.

The GNOME Panel will die and restart.

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Ubuntu Release Schedule

One thing I didn’t know was that, according to the video, if an Ubuntu release is delayed, it’s year-month version (like 9.10 for Ubuntu Karmic released in October 2009), is also changed. I had been under the impression that the version number is just symbolic and it remains constant.

One thing that doesn’t change is the codename for a given release (such as Karmic Koala for 9.10, Jaunty Jackelope for 9.04). The codenames are usually based on unusual animal names paired with an unusual adjective to make googling for information on the realease easier.

Here’s a list of past and upcoming Ubuntu releases:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

The next release of Ubuntu after Karmic Koala is Lucid Lynx, 10.04, due in April 2010.

That version is a so-called LTS release (Long-Term Support).

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1. Most webservers are case-sensitive. Because of this, most websites stick to the rule of having all files in a single case, namely lower.

2. If you’re using the command line to manipulate files, it’s easier when all the files are lower case. It’s a lot faster to type in all one case.

But it’s too time consuming to rename each file individually, so here are a few ways to rename. These are adapted from the commandlinefu website. (But the commands there have some bugs, so keep reading here.)

Renaming all the files in the current directory from uppercase to lowercase

rename 'y/A-Z/a-z/' *

This uses the rename script which is included with Perl, which in turn uses Perl’s rename function.

Most Linuxes and Unixes include Perl these days, including most web hosts. It’s easier and more succint than the alternatives.

Renaming all files from uppercase to lowercase in the current and subdirectories recursively

The way to do this is to feed rename a list of all files in the current directory and its subdirectories:

find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 rename 'y/A-Z/a-z/'

Here’s what it means:

find prints a list of all files in the current and all subdirectories, recursively. -type f means only print the names of files, and not directories.

The | takes the output of the first command and sends it as input to the second command.

xargs takes the input (which is a list of files) and executes rename once for every filename, while appending the filename to the end of the rename command.

Normally, find puts a newline between each filename. But since a file’s name can also contain newlines, you make find delimit the filenames with a null character (ASCII 0). You do this by specifying the -print0 option. But you also have to tell xargs not to view newlines or spaces as filename delimiters, but rather only the null character. You do that with the -0 option.

Renaming files to lowercase without using Perl

Occasionally, you might not have access to Perl.

In such cases, you can use straight POSIX shell commands:

find . -type f|while read f; do mv "$f" "$(echo $f|tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')"; done

This is an alernative that’s faster:

find . -type f -execdir sh -c 'mv "'{}'" "$(echo '{}'|tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')"' \;

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This move had generated quite a bit of controversy in the discussion of the matter on Slashdot. There, some posters called the dropping of GIMP to be a sign of the dumbing-down of Ubuntu. Others lamented the loss of a flagship program which had always been showcased as an example of what free and open-source (FOSS) software can do. This is all the more so with GIMP, since it’s toolkit of graphical widgets (such as buttons, menus, and option lists) was the basis for GTK+ (GIMP ToolKit Plus), which is the basis for the GNOME Desktop used by Ubuntu and other Linux distributions. Finally one user said that while not all casual users may have a need for graphics editing to the extent provided by the GIMP, it’s exactly because the software used to be installed that casual users were able to be easily introduced to software they may not have imagined existed or thought they had a need for.

But an article by developer Ryan Paul in Ars Technica claims that letting the GIMP go is a sign of Ubuntu’s maturity and its going mainstream. Because more and more “normal” desktop users are using Ubuntu, the usage profile has changed, and such users don’t need the intricate graphics editing features of the GIMP. Paul also explained the open process for participation at the Ubuntu Developer Summit where the decision was made. Upstream developers are also invited to such meetings, and Sven Neumann, a GIMP developer and the author of the GIMP Pocket Reference, approved the move on the GIMP developer mailing list.

The void left by the GIMP may be filled by F-Spot, the photo management application, in the next version. The problem with F-Spot, though, is that it has a very heavy management mode in which it wants to “import” your photos before it’ll allow you to work with them. The seperate “viewer” mode, which is invoked by choosing “Edit with F-Spot” in the Nautilus File Manager, doesn’t have editing tools.

But they were added by a developer recently just for testing, and the result, along with a few more editing tools, may mean F-Spot will have enough image editing tools for casual photographers in future versions.

Another aspect to the matter was voiced on Ars Technica Forums: While echoing sentiments found on Slashdot, some also questioned why it was GIMP being removed. Particularly, why should F-Spot remain on the CD with its large Mono dependencies? Granted, Tomboy also uses Mono, but some want that removed as well.

F-Spot is not favoured by all, and alternatives to F-Spot include Solang, Shotwell or IntiPinku for GNOME and DigiKam and DigiKam and Gwenview for KDE.

Resources

Ars Technica Article on the GIMP

Ars Techinca Forum Discussion

Slashdot Discussion

Solang

Shotwell

IntiPunku

DigiKam

Gwenview

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• The phrase “K Desktop Environment” won’t be used
• KDE means the community and an overarching brand
• Various KDE products’ new names:
• KDE Plasma Desktop and KDE Plasma Netbook
• KDE technologies become the KDE Platform
• The KDE Applications remain the same
• KDE 4.3 will be called “KDE Software Compilation 4.4″ in the next release

Although there’s some logic to the name changes, I think force of habit is going to have people continue to refer to KDE as KDE 4.4.

The fact is, people call products what they want to call them, regardless of what company marketing departments want. For example, Xerox doesn’t want you to refer to photocopying as xeroxing, but people still do. Kleenex doesn’t want you to refer to facial tissue as kleenexes, but people still do.

Slashdot discussion here.

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Some features of the new release include:

• The Ubuntu Software Center. This is an application that replaces the old Application Add/Remove. It’s nice for browsing available software, and you can install from there too.
• Firefox 3.5 Browser
• OpenOffice version 3.1
• UbuntuOne, a  cloud-based file storage and backup service. Ubuntu offers a free 2GB of storage to everyone, with various paid plans after that.
• Empathy replaces Pidgin as the instant message client
• There’s a new login manager (gdm 2.28) which provides a more integrated login
• A revamped Network Manager whose goal is to just have networks work without a lot of fuss
• Social network integration, having e-mail, web-mail, IM, and twitter clients all acccessible from a single messages indicator applet running on the top panel.

Some features under the hood include:

• Use of DeviceKit instead of hal (hardware access layer) for power management and laptop function keys.
• Use of the ext4 filesystem by default on new installations
• GRUB 2 as the boot manager for new installations
• Non Executable Emulation: Allows installations on computers that don’t have hardware non-executable protection to emulate approximate it.
• More applications are build as “position-independent executables”, decreasing the risk of attack by malware
• Replacing the input method framework SCIM with IBUS

Download Karmic Koala here.

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