Copyright © 2001-2015 The BLFS Development Team
Copyright © 2001-2015, The BLFS Development Team
All rights reserved.
This book is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Computer instructions may be extracted from the book under the MIT License.
Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
2015-10-01
| Revision History | ||
|---|---|---|
| Revision 7.8 | 2015-10-01 | Twelfth release |
| Revision 7.7 | 2015-03-06 | Eleventh release |
| Revision 7.6 | 2014-09-23 | Tenth release |
| Revision 7.5 | 2014-03-05 | Ninth release |
| Revision 7.4 | 2013-09-14 | Eighth release |
| Revision 6.3 | 2008-08-24 | Seventh release |
| Revision 6.2.0 | 2007-02-14 | Sixth release |
| Revision 6.1 | 2005-08-14 | Fifth release |
| Revision 6.0 | 2005-04-02 | Fourth release |
| Revision 5.1 | 2004-06-05 | Third release |
| Revision 5.0 | 2003-11-06 | Second release |
| Revision 1.0 | 2003-04-25 | First release |
Abstract
This book follows on from the Linux From Scratch book. It introduces and guides the reader through additions to the system including networking, graphical interfaces, sound support, and printer and scanner support.
Having helped out with Linux From Scratch for a short time, I noticed that we were getting many queries as to how to do things beyond the base LFS system. At the time, the only assistance specifically offered relating to LFS were the LFS hints (http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints). Most of the LFS hints are extremely good and well written but I (and others) could still see a need for more comprehensive help to go Beyond LFS - hence BLFS.
BLFS aims to be more than the LFS-hints converted to XML although much of our work is based around the hints and indeed some authors write both hints and the relevant BLFS sections. We hope that we can provide you with enough information to not only manage to build your system up to what you want, whether it be a web server or a multimedia desktop system, but also that you will learn a lot about system configuration as you go.
Thanks as ever go to everyone in the LFS/BLFS community; especially those who have contributed instructions, written text, answered questions and generally shouted when things were wrong!
Finally, we encourage you to become involved in the community; ask questions on the mailing list or news gateway and join in the fun on #lfs at irc.linuxfromscratch.org. You can find more details about all of these in the Introduction section of the book.
Enjoy using BLFS.
Mark Hymers
markh <at> linuxfromscratch.org
BLFS Editor (July 2001–March 2003)
I still remember how I found the BLFS project and started using the instructions that were completed at the time. I could not believe how wonderful it was to get an application up and running very quickly, with explanations as to why things were done a certain way. Unfortunately, for me, it wasn't long before I was opening applications that had nothing more than "To be done" on the page. I did what most would do, I waited for someone else to do it. It wasn't too long before I am looking through Bugzilla for something easy to do. As with any learning experience, the definition of what was easy kept changing.
We still encourage you to become involved as BLFS is never really finished. Contributing or just using, we hope you enjoy your BLFS experience.
Larry Lawrence
larry <at> linuxfromscratch.org
BLFS Editor (March 2003–June 2004)
The BLFS project is a natural progression of LFS. Together, these projects provide a unique resource for the Open Source Community. They take the mystery out of the process of building a complete, functional software system from the source code contributed by many talented individuals throughout the world. They truly allow users to implement the slogan "Your distro, your rules."
Our goal is to continue to provide the best resource available that shows you how to integrate many significant Open Source applications. Since these applications are constantly updated and new applications are developed, this book will never be complete. Additionally, there is always room for improvement in explaining the nuances of how to install the different packages. To make these improvements, we need your feedback. I encourage you to participate on the different mailing lists, news groups, and IRC channels to help meet these goals.
Bruce Dubbs
bdubbs <at> linuxfromscratch.org
BLFS Editor (June 2004–December 2006)
My introduction to the [B]LFS project was actually by accident. I was trying to build a GNOME environment using some how-tos and other information I found on the web. A couple of times I ran into some build issues and Googling pulled up some old BLFS mailing list messages. Out for curiosity, I visited the Linux From Scratch web site and shortly thereafter was hooked. I've not used any other Linux distribution for personal use since.
I can't promise anyone will feel the sense of satisfaction I felt after building my first few systems using [B]LFS instructions, but I sincerely hope that your BLFS experience is as rewarding for you as it has been for me.
The BLFS project has grown significantly the last couple of years. There are more package instructions and related dependencies than ever before. The project requires your input for continued success. If you discover that you enjoy building BLFS, please consider helping out in any way you can. BLFS requires hundreds of hours of maintenance to keep it even semi-current. If you feel confident enough in your editing skills, please consider joining the BLFS team. Simply contributing to the mailing list discussions with sound advice and/or providing patches to the book's XML will probably result in you receiving an invitation to join the team.
Randy McMurchy
randy <at> linuxfromscratch.org
BLFS Editor (December 2006–January 2011)
This is the development version of the BLFS book. This version of the book is intended to be used when building on top of a system built using the LFS development book as well as the current stable version of LFS. Though this version of the book is development in nature, every effort has been made to ensure accuracy and reliability of the instructions. Many people find that using the instructions in this book after building the current stable or development version of LFS provides a stable and very modern Linux system.
Enjoy!
Randy McMurchy
August 24th, 2008
Last updated on 2015-09-20 15:38:20 -0700
This book is mainly aimed at those who have built a system based on the LFS book. It will also be useful for those who are using other distributions, but for one reason or another want to manually build software and are in need of some assistance. Note that the material contained in this book, in particular the dependency listings, is based upon the assumption that you are using a base LFS system with every package listed in the LFS book already installed and configured. BLFS can be used to create a range of diverse systems and so the target audience is probably nearly as wide as that of the LFS book. If you found LFS useful, you should also like this!
Last updated on 2015-09-20 15:38:20 -0700
This book is divided into the following parts.
This part contains information which is essential to the rest of the book.
Here we introduce basic configuration and security issues. We also discuss a range of editors, file systems, and shells which aren't covered in the main LFS book.
In this section we cover libraries which are often needed by the rest of the book as well as system utilities. Information on Programming (including recompiling GCC to support its full range of languages) concludes this part.
Here we cover how to connect to a network when you aren't using the simple static IP setup given in the main LFS book. Networking libraries and command-line networking tools are also covered here.
Here we deal with setting up mail and other servers (such as SSH, Apache, etc.).
This part explains how to set up a basic X Window System installation along with some generic X libraries and Window managers.
For those who want to use the K Desktop Environment or some parts of it, this part covers it.
GNOME is the main alternative to KDE in the Desktop Environment arena.
Xfce is a lightweight alternative to GNOME and KDE.
Office programs and graphical web browsers are important to most people. They, along with some generic X software can be found in this part of the book.
Here we cover setting multimedia libraries and drivers along with some audio, video and CD-writing programs.
The PST part of the book covers document handling with applications like Ghostscript, CUPS and DocBook to installing texlive.
The Appendices cover information which doesn't belong in the main book; they are mainly there as a reference.
Last updated on 2015-09-20 15:38:20 -0700
The Beyond Linux From Scratch book is designed to carry on from where the LFS book leaves off. But unlike the LFS book, it isn't designed to be followed straight through. Reading the Which sections of the book? part of this chapter should help guide you through the book.
Please read most of this part of the book carefully as it explains quite a few of the conventions used throughout the book.
Unlike the Linux From Scratch book, BLFS isn't designed to be followed in a linear manner. This is because LFS provides instructions on how to create a base system which is capable of turning into anything from a web server to a multimedia desktop system. BLFS attempts to guide you in the process of going from the base system to your intended destination. Choice is very much involved.
Everyone who reads the book will want to read certain sections. The Introduction part, which you are currently reading, contains generic information. Especially take note of the information in Chapter 2, Important Information, as this contains comments about how to unpack software, issues related to using different locales and various other aspects which apply throughout the book.
The part on Post LFS Configuration and Extra Software is where most people will want to turn next. This deals with not just configuration but also Security (Chapter 4, Security), File Systems (Chapter 5, File Systems and Disk Management), Editors (Chapter 6, Editors) and Shells (Chapter 7, Shells). Indeed, you may wish to reference certain parts of this chapter (especially the sections on Editors and File Systems) while building your LFS system.
Following these basic items, most people will want to at least browse through the General Libraries and Utilities part of the book. This part contains information on many items which are prerequisites for other sections of the book as well as some items (such as Chapter 13, Programming) which are useful in their own right. Note that you don't have to install all of these libraries and packages found in this part to start with as each BLFS installation procedure tells you which packages it depends upon so you can choose the program you want to install and see what it needs.
Likewise, most people will probably want to look at the Networking part. It deals with connecting to the Internet or your LAN (Chapter 14, Connecting to a Network) using a variety of methods such as DHCP and PPP, and with items such as Networking Libraries (Chapter 17, Networking Libraries) and various basic networking programs and utilities.
Once you have dealt with these basics, you may wish to configure more advanced network services. These are dealt with in the Servers part of the book. Those wanting to build servers should find a good starting point there. Note that this section also contains information on various database packages.
The next parts of the book principally deal with desktop systems. This portion of the book starts with a part talking about X plus Window and Display Managers. This part also deals with some generic X-based libraries (Chapter 25, X Libraries). After this, KDE and GNOME are given their own parts which are followed by one on X Software.
The book then moves on to deal with Multimedia packages. Note that many people may want to use the ALSA-1.0.29 instructions from this chapter quite near the start of their BLFS journey; they are placed here simply because it is the most logical place for them.
The final part of the main BLFS book deals with Printing, Scanning and Typesetting. This is useful for most people with desktop systems and even those who are creating mainly server systems will find it useful.
We hope you enjoy using BLFS and find it useful.
Last updated on 2012-12-19 11:57:20 -0800
To make things easy to follow, there are a number of conventions used throughout the book. Following are some examples:
./configure --prefix=/usr
This form of text is designed to be typed exactly as seen unless otherwise noted in the surrounding text. It is also used to identify references to specific commands.
install-info: unknown option
`--dir-file=/mnt/lfs/usr/info/dir'
This form of text (fixed width text) is showing screen output, probably a result from issuing a command. It is also used to show filenames such as
/boot/grub/grub.conf
Emphasis
This form of text is used for several purposes in the book but mainly to emphasize important points or to give examples as to what to type.
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
This form of text is used for hypertext links external to the book such as HowTos, download locations, websites, etc.
This form of text is used for links internal to the book such as another section describing a different package.
cat > $LFS/etc/group << "EOF"
root:x:0:
bin:x:1:
......
EOF
This type of section is used mainly when creating configuration files. The first command (in bold) tells the system to create the file
$LFS/etc/groupfrom whatever is typed on the following lines until the sequence EOF is encountered. Therefore, this whole section is generally typed as seen.
<REPLACED
TEXT>
This form of text is used to encapsulate text that should be modified and is not to be typed as seen, or copy and pasted. Note that the square brackets are not part of the text, but should be substituted for as well.
root
This form of text is used to show a specific system user or group reference in the instructions.
When packages are created, the authors depend on prior work. In order to build a package in BLFS, these dependencies must be built prior to the desired package. For each package, any prerequsite packages are listed in one or more separate sections: Required, Recommended, and Optional.
These dependencies are the minimum prerequsite packages required to build the package. Omitted from the list are packages in LFS and required dependencies of other required packages.
These dependencies are those that the BLFS editors have determined are important to give the package reasonable capabilities. Package installation instructions assume thay are installed. If a recommended package is not desired, the instructions may need to be modified to accommodate the missing package.
These dependencies are those that the package may use. Integration of optional dependencies may be automatic by the package or may need additional instructions not presented by BLFS. Optional packages may be listed without corresponding BLFS instructions. In this case it is up to the user to determine appropriate installation instructions.
Some packages have specific needs regarding the kernel configuration. The general layout is the following:
Master section --->
Subsection --->
[*] Required parameter [CONFIG_REQU_PAR]
<*> Required parameter (not as module) [CONFIG_REQU_PAR_NMOD]
<*/M> Required parameter (could be a module) [CONFIG_REQU_PAR_MOD]
<*/M/ > Optional parameter [CONFIG_OPT_PAR]
[ ] Incompatible parameter [CONFIG_INCOMP_PAR]
< > Incompatible parameter (even as module) [CONFIG_INCOMP_PAR_MOD]
[CONFIG_...] on the right gives the name of the option, so
you can easily check whether it is set in your config file. The meaning of the various
entries is:
Master section top level menu item Subsection submenu item Required parameter the option could be either built-in or not selected: it must be selected Required parameter (not as module) the option could be either built-in, module, or not selected: it must be selected as built-in Required parameter (could be a module) the option could be either built-in, module, or not selected: it must be selected, either as built-in or module Optional parameter rarely used: the option could be either built-in, module, or not selected: it may be selected at will Incompatible parameter the option could be either built-in or not selected: it must not be selected Incompatible parameter (even as module) the option could be either built-in, module, or not selected: it must not be selected
Note that, depending on other selections, the angle brackets (<>) may appear as braces ({}), if the option cannot be unselected, or even dashes (-*- or -M-), when the choice is imposed. The help text about the option specifies the other selections on which this option relies, and how those other selections are set.
As in LFS, each package in BLFS has a build time listed in Standard Build Units (SBUs). These times are relative to the time it took to build binutils in LFS and are intended to provide some insight into how long it will take to build a package. Most times listed are for a single processor or core to build the package. In some cases, large, long running builds tested on multi-core systems have SBU times listed with comments such as '(parallelism=4)'. These values indicate testing was done using multiple cores. Note that while this speeds up the build on systems with the appropriate hardware, the speedup is not linear and to some extent depends on the individual package and specific hardware used.
Some packages do not support parallel builds and using -j1 for the make command is required. Packages that are known to have such limits are marked as such in the text.
Last updated on 2014-12-07 07:55:09 -0800
This is BLFS-BOOK version 7.8 dated October 1st 2015. This is the development branch of the BLFS book, currently targeting the LFS development book. If this version (7.8) is older than a month, it's likely that your mirror hasn't been synchronized recently and a newer version is probably available for download or viewing. Check one of the mirror sites at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/mirrors.html for an updated version.
Last updated on 2008-05-10 18:20:50 -0700
The BLFS project has a number of mirrors set up world-wide to make it easier and more convenient for you to access the website. Please visit the http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/mirrors.html website for the list of current mirrors.
Last updated on 2007-04-04 12:42:53 -0700
Within the BLFS instructions, each package has two references for finding the source files for the package—an HTTP link and an FTP link (some packages may only list one of these links). Every effort has been made to ensure that these links are accurate. However, the World Wide Web is in continuous flux. Packages are sometimes moved or updated and the exact URL specified is not always available.
To overcome this problem, the BLFS Team, with the assistance of Server Beach, has made an HTTP/FTP site available at anduin.linuxfromscratch.org. This site has all the sources of the exact versions of the packages used in BLFS. If you can't find the BLFS package you need, get it there.
We would like to ask a favor, however. Although this is a public resource for you to use, please do not abuse it. We have already had one unthinking individual download over 3 GB of data, including multiple copies of the same files that are placed at different locations (via symlinks) to make finding the right package easier. This person clearly did not know what files he needed and downloaded everything. The best place to download files is the site or sites set up by the source code developer. Please try there first.
Last updated on 2012-12-19 11:57:20 -0800
Current release: 7.8 – October 1st 2015
Changelog Entries:
October 1st, 2015
[bdubbs] - Release of BLFS-7.8.
September 30th, 2015
September 29th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to seamonkey-2.38. Fixes #6978.
September 26th, 2015
[pierre] - Update to bind-9.10.3. Fixes #6937.
September 25th, 2015
[fernando] - Fix starting X with startx ... Part 2. Partially fixes #6972.
September 24th, 2015
[fernando] - Fix starting X with startx (from xinit) and sddm (with consolekit2 and upowerd) and somwhat related fixes. Fixes #6972.
[bdubbs] - Update to KDE Frameworks 5.14. Fixes #6810.
[bdubbs] - Update to Net-DNS-1.02 (perl module). Fixes #6942.
[bdubbs] - Update to KDE5 Applications ot 15.06.1. Partially fixes #6844.
[ken] - Update to Qemu-2.4.0.1. Fixes #6952.
[ken] - Update to Firefox-41.0. Fixes #6971.
[ken] - Add an extra define to the sqlite instructions, for firefox-41.0.
September 21st, 2015
[ken] - Update to links-2.12 (Security bug fix, warn if the server uses old SSL2 or SSL3 protocol to avoid the POODLE vulnerability). Fixes #6948.
September 17th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to pciutils-3.4.0. Fixes #6934.
[bdubbs] - Update to sddm-0.12.0.
[bdubbs] - Update to ConsoleKit2-1.0.0.
September 16th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Add kernel options for suspend and hibernate to pm-utils.
September 13th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Archive libzeitgeist.
[bdubbs] - Add a sed to fix a bug in libxml2.
[ken] - Remove obsolete Berkeley-DB dependency from Python2 - thanks to Sylvain Etienne for noticing.
[pierre] - Update to OpenJDK-1.8.0.60. Fixes #6903.
[fernando] - Update to zsh-5.1.1. Fixes #6925.
[pierre] - Update to Icedtea-web-1.6.1. Fixes #6926.
[pierre] - Update to FOP-2.0. Fixes #6567.
September 12th, 2015
[fernando] - Add xarchiver-0.5.4. Fixes #6909.
September 10th, 2015
[ken] - Update to dhcp-4.3.3. Fixes #6897.
September 10th, 2015
September 9th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to cracklib-2.9.6. Fixes #6870.
September 8th, 2015
[ken] - patch libreoffice to use system boost.
[ken] - audacious (since 3.5) needs gnome-icon-theme at runtime to provide some of the control icons.
[fernando] - Update to libxcb-1.11.1. Fixes #6908.
[fernando] - Update to xfsprogs-4.2.0. Fixes #6907.
[fernando] - Update to LVM2.2.02.130. Fixes #6904.
[fernando] - Update to clutter-gst-3.0.10. Fixes #6901.
[fernando] - Update to dhcpcd-6.9.3. Fixes #6900.
[fernando] - Update to php-5.6.13. Fixes #6899.
[fernando] - Update to libtasn1. Fixes #6898.
September 6th, 2015
[fernando] - Short descriptions from Denis Mugnier. Fixes #6905.
[fernando] - Update to bind9.10.2-P4 and BIND Utilities-9.10.2-P4. Fixes #6896.
[fernando] - Update to subversion-1.9.1. Fixes #6895.
[fernando] - Update to bluez-5.34. Fixes #6894.
[fernando] - Update to harfbuzz-1.0.3. Fixes #6893.
[fernando] - Update to stunnel-5.23. Fixes #6891.
September 5th, 2015
September 4th, 2015
September 3rd, 2015
[ken] - Fix buffer overflows in pcre-8.37 (some also present in earlier versions). Fixes #6890.
[fernando] - Short descriptions from Denis Mugnier. Fixes #6887.
[fernando] - Update to cups-2.1.0. Fixes #6881.
[fernando] - Update to libvdpau-1.1.1. Fixes #6880.
[fernando] - Update to libevdev-1.4.4. Fixes #6879.
September 2nd, 2015
[ken] - Update to mutt-1.5.24. Fixes #6882.
September 1st, 2015
August 29th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to gdb-7.10. Fixes #6873.
August 28th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to xterm-320. Fixes #6872.
[fernando] - Update to libassuan-2.3.0. Fixes #6871.
[fernando] - Update to NSPR-4.10.9. Fixes #6868.
[fernando] - Update to unrar-5.3.3. Fixes #6866.
[fernando] - Update to NetworkManager-1.0.6 and network-manager-applet-1.0.6. Fixes #6865.
[fernando] - Update to libreoffice-5.0.1. Fixes #6864.
[fernando] - Update to firefox-40.0.3. Fixes #6863.
[fernando] - fontforge-20150824: --enable-debug requires libspiro.
[fernando] - Fix main menu display problem for LXQT, from hykwok1.
[fernando] - More short descriptions, from Denis Mugnier. Fixes #6845.
August 27th, 2015
August 26th, 2015
August 25th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to sysstat-11.1.6. Fixes #6854.
August 23rd, 2015
[fernando] - Update to mesa-10.6.5. Fixes #6851.
August 22nd, 2015
[fernando] - Update to dhcpcd-6.9.2. Fixes #6849.
[fernando] - Update to openssh-7.1p1 and ssh-askpass-7.1p1. Fixes #6848.
[fernando] - Update to gvfs-1.24.2. Fixes #6846.
[fernando] - Update to xterm-319. Fixes #6842.
[fernando] - Update to colord-1.2.12. Fixes #6841.
[fernando] - Update to harfbuzz-1.0.2. Fixes #6840.
[fernando] - Update to nss-3.20. Fixes #6839.
August 20th, 2015
August 18th, 2015
August 17th, 2015
[ken] - use a variable to support building lxqt in /usr as an alternative to building in /opt/lxqt.
[fernando] - Update to gedit-3.16.3. Fixes #6829.
[fernando] - Remove the xkeystone script - patch from Denis Mugnier. Fixes #6827.
[fernando] - Update to acpid-2.0.25. Fixes #6826.
[fernando] - Update to libdrm-2.4.63. Fixes #6821.
[fernando] - Update to openldap-2.4.42. Fixes #6820.
August 16th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to LibRaw-0.17.0. Fixes #6825.
[fernando] - Update to ImageMagick-6.9.2-0. Fixes #6823.
[fernando] - Update to thunderbird-38.2.0. Fixes #6822.
[fernando] - Move "Configuring lxqt-common" from "lxqt-common-0.9.1" to "lxqt-session-0.9.0" and rename it to "Configuring lxqt-session", because "lxqt-config-session" is installed there. Fixes #6819.
August 15th, 2015
August 13th, 2015
August 12th, 2015
August 11th, 2015
August 10th, 2015
August 9th, 2015
August 8th, 2015
August 7th, 2015
August 6th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to libreoffice-5.0.0. Fixes #6786.
August 5th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to unrar-5.3.2. Fixes #6788.
[fernando] - Update to graphite2-1.3.0. Fixes #6787.
[fernando] - Update to mpg123-1.22.3. Fixes #6785.
[fernando] - Update to gparted-0.23.0. Fixes #6784.
[fernando] - Update to libsecret-0.18.3. Fixes #6783.
[fernando] - Update to swig-3.0.7. Fixes #6782.
[fernando] - Update to mdadm-3.3.4. Fixes #6781.
August 4th, 2015
[fernando] - incorrect dependency in pcmanfm-qt. Thanks to Ken Moffat for reporting. Fixes #6780.
August 3rd, 2015
August 1st, 2015
[fernando] - "s/Fixes heads for/Fixes the headers for/" in the LXQt files. Big thanks to Ken Moffat.
[fernando] - Several fixes for the files in the Chapter "Display Managers"; patch sent by Bruce Dubbs. Thanks! Fix 3 for #6639.
[fernando] - Added instruction to install the sddm bootscript. Fix 2 for #6639.
[fernando] - cups-filters-1.0.71 does not build with poppler-3.4. Fixes #6777.
[fernando] - Update to scons-2.3.6. Fixes #6776.
[fernando] - Update to mercurial-3.5. Fixes #6775.
[fernando] - Update to Archive-Zip-1.49. Fixes #6774.
[fernando] - Update to cups-2.0.4. Fixes #6772.
[fernando] - Add sddm-0.11.0. First fix to #6639.
[fernando] - Move lxdm-0.5.0 to Chapter "Display Managers".
[fernando] - Add Chapter "Display Managers".
July 31th, 2015
July 30th, 2015
[renodr] - Added some more short descriptions. Thanks goes to myou for the descriptions. Fixes #6768.
[renodr] - Update to gnumeric-1.12.23. Fixes #6763.
[renodr] - Update to goffice-0.10.23. Fixes #6762.
[fernando] - Update to libreoffice-4.4.5. Fixes #6769.
[fernando] - Update to sqlite-3.8.11.1. Fixes #6767.
[fernando] - Update to whois_5.2.10. Fixes #6766.
[fernando] - Update to xfsprogs-3.2.4. Fixes #6765.
July 29th, 2015
[renodr] - Update to libgsf-1.14.34. Fixes #6761.
[renodr] - Update to mesa-10.6.3. Fixes #6755.
[renodr] - Add libxslt as a required dependency for Akonadi. Thanks goes to Tommy Lincoln for reporting the issue.
[pierre] - Update to OpenJDK-1.8.0.51. Fixes #6725.
[fernando] - Update to bind9.10.2-P3 and BIND Utilities-9.10.2-P3. Fixes #6764.
[pierre] - Update to GCC-5.2.0. Fixes #6728.
July 28th, 2015
[renodr] - Add oxygen-icons to dependencies for pcmanfm-qt.
[renodr] - Fix build errors in librep and reiserfs. Thanks goes to Lee for reporting these problems.
[fernando] - Update to sqlite-3.8.10. Fixes #6760.
[fernando] - Update to stunnel-5.21. Fixes #6758.
[fernando] - Update to git-2.5.0. Fixes #6573.
[ken] - Correct error in installation of perl modules shipped in the texlive source (change bogus TEXYEAR variable to the correct entity) and improve the wording for the harfbuzz dependency. Thanks to Lee Hancock.
July 27th, 2015
July 26th, 2015
[renodr] - Update to kde-15.04.3. Fixes #6680.
July 25th, 2015
July 24th, 2015
[fernando] - Add automoc4-0.9.88 as required dependency for kdelibs-4.14.9.
[fernando] - Update to cmake-3.3.0. Fixes #6748.
July 23rd, 2015
July 22nd, 2015
July 21st, 2015
[fernando] - Archive appstream-glib-0.4.2. Fixes #6741.
[fernando] - Update to gdk-pixbuf-2.31.5. Fixes #6740.
[fernando] - Update to postfix-3.0.2. Fixes #6736.
[fernando] - Update to appstream-glib-0.4.1. Fixes #6738.
[fernando] - Update to ffmpeg-2.7.2. Fixes #6736.
[fernando] - Update to sudo-1.8.14p2. Fixes #6729.
July 20th, 2015
[fernando] - Add one more LXQt application and two dependencies required: chrpath-0.16, QScintilla-gpl-2.9, and juffed-0.10.r71.gc3c1a3f. Fixes and xml file renames for lximage-qt-0.4.0 and obconf-qt-0.9.0.8.g1ce85f1. These are more fixes to #5683.
July 19th, 2015
[renodr] - Update to swig-3.0.6. Fixes #6691.
[bdubbs] - Update to Unicode-LineBreak-2015.07.16. Fixes #6730.
[renodr] - Update to clutter-gst-3.0.8. Fixes #6733.
[fernando] - LXQt applications: More fixes, including some for building with Qt4. #5683.
[renodr] - Update to libgusb-1.2.6. Fixes #6693.
[renodr] - Fixed an issue with a hard dependency on Valgrind within libdrm. Thanks to Wayne for discovering the issue. Fixes #6731.
July 18th, 2015
[fernando] - Add LXQt applications. More fixes to #5683.
July 17th, 2015
July 16th, 2015
July 15th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to httpd-2.4.16. Fixes #6723.
[bdubbs] - Update to links-2.10. Fixes #6714.
[bdubbs] - Update to mesa-10.6.2. Fixes #6714.
[fernando] - Add LXQt 0.9.1. Fixes #5683.
[fernando] - Add libstatgrab-0.91. Fixes #6724.
[renodr] - Update to LLVM-3.6.2. Fixes #6718.
[bdubbs] - Update to tigervnc-1.5.0. Fixes #6628.
July 14th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to lsof_4.89. Fixes #6717.
[bdubbs] - Update to cracklib-2.9.5. Fixes #6716.
[bdubbs] - Update to gnutls-3.4.3. Fixes #6715.
[bdubbs] - Update to kf5-5.12.0. Fixes #6719.
[pierre] - Update to mupdf-1.7a. Fixes #6692.
[pierre] - Update to apache-ant-1.9.6. Fixes #6683.
[pierre] - Update to mercurial-3.4.2. Fixes #6677.
July 13th, 2015
[renodr] - Update to sg3_utils-1.40. Fixes #6696.
July 12th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to epiphany-3.16.3. Fixes #6708.
[bdubbs] - Update to php-5.6.11. Fixes #6711.
[bdubbs] - Update to thunderbird-38.1.0. Fixes #6712.
[bdubbs] - Update to stunnel-5.20. Fixes #6704.
[bdubbs] - Update to libidn-1.31. Fixes #6713.
[bdubbs] - Update to perl module Unicode-Collate-1.14. Fixes #6710.
[bdubbs] - Update to dhcpcd-6.9.1. Fixes #6706.
[bdubbs] - Update to liblinear-2.01. Fixes #6705.
[bdubbs] - Update to unbound-1.5.4. Fixes #6707.
[bdubbs] - Update to webkitgtk-2.8.4. Fixes #6699.
July 11th, 2015
July 10th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to libreoffice-4.4.4.3. Fixes #6668.
July 9th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to LVM2.2.02.125. Fixes #6662.
[bdubbs] - Update to openssl-1.0.2d. Fixes #6703.
[bdubbs] - Update to bluez-5.32. Fixes #6695.
[bdubbs] - Update to poppler-0.34.0. Fixes #6702.
[bdubbs] - Update to ed-1.12. Fixes #6700.
[bdubbs] - Update to nano-2.4.2. Fixes #6690.
[bdubbs] - Update to libunistring-0.9.6. Fixes #6701.
[bdubbs] - Update kde5 apps kate, kdenlive, kmix, and konsole to version 15.04.3. Fixes #6689.
[bdubbs] - Update to Net-DNS-1.01. Fixes #6694.
[bdubbs] - Update to Test-Pod-1.51. Fixes #6687.
July 8th, 2015
July 7th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Remove gstreamer-0.x. Includes archiving xfce4-mixer. Fixes #6688.
July 4th, 2015
July 3rd, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to xscreensaver-5.33. Fixes #6681.
[bdubbs] - Update to firefox-39.0. Fixes #6583.
[bdubbs] - Update to gnupg-2.1.6. Fixes #6673.
[bdubbs] - Update to pinentry-0.9.5. Fixes #6675.
[bdubbs] - Update to polkit-0.113. Fixes #6682.
[bdubbs] - Update to perl module autovivification-0.16. Fixes #6676.
[bdubbs] - Update to libass-0.12.3. Fixes #6669.
[bdubbs] - Update to openssh-6.9p1. Fixes #6661.
July 2nd, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to ntp-4.2.8-3. Fixes #6664.
[renodr] - Update to xproto-7.0.28. Fixes #6679.
[renodr] - Update to openbox-3.6.1. Fixes #6672.
[renodr] - Update to file-roller-3.16.3. Fixes #6667.
[renodr] - Update to udisks2-2.1.6. Fixes #6663.
[renodr] - Update to iso-codes-3.59. Fixes #6674.
[renodr] - Update to clutter-gtk-1.6.2. Fixes #6666.
[renodr] - Update to clutter-1.22.4. Fixes #6665.
July 1st, 2015
June 30th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Add mlt (MLT Multimedia Framework).
[bdubbs] - Add frei0r (Free Video Effect Plugins).
[bdubbs] - Add gavl (Gmerlin Audio Video Library).
[ken] - gst-plugins-bad (both series): fix the browser segfaults in youtube when compiled with gcc-5. Thanks to Bruce for cleaning up the sed.
[ken] - Update to released version of blblatex-biber-2.1. Fixes #6610.
[bdubbs] - Add opencv (Open Computer Vision).
[renodr] - Update to liblinear-2.0. Fixes #6659.
[renodr] - Update to screen-4.3.1. Fixes #6658.
June 29th, 2015
[ken] - Add the dependencies needed to run 'make test' for List::AllUtils (perl module) - I managed to omit them when I originally added biblatex-biber. And clarify that there might be other (optional) dependencies for those modules labelled '(for the testsuite)' - these modules do not have a version in the book, so their treatment is the same as for other packages with external references.
[bdubbs] - Add KF5 based applications konsole, kate, and kmix.
[ken] - More fixups to configure switches for asymptote.
June 28th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Substitute libgudev for Udev Extras. Fixes #6641.
[bdubbs] - Add KDE Frameworks 5.
[renodr] - Update to lm_sensors-3.4.0. Fixes #6649.
[fernando] - Update to cups-filters-1.0.70. Fixes #6657.
[fernando] - Update to libpcap-1.7.4. Fixes #6656.
[fernando] - Update to doxygen-1.8.10. Fixes #6655.
[fernando] - Update to scons-2.3.5. Fixes #6654.
June 27th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to Linux-PAM-1.2.1. Fixes #6651.
[ken] - Update to URI-1.68 (perl module). Fixes #6650.
[ken] - Update to Unicode::LineBreak-2015.06 (perl module). Fixes #6633.
[ken] - Update to Data::Dump-1.23 (perl module). Fixes #6585.
[ken] - Update to Encode::JIS2K-0.03 (perl module). Fixes #6571.
[ken] - Update to Test::Pod-1.50 (perl module). Fixes #6494.
June 26th, 2015
[ken] - Change the commands to determine the
version of Util.so
from Scalar::List::Utils in the perl modules page
so that they work with both perl-5.22.0 and earlier
versions.
[bdubbs] - Reorganize KDE to support KDE Frameworks 5. Move several packages to the introduction that are common to KDE4 and FK5.
[fernando] - Update to exiv2-0.25. Fixes #6646.
June 25th, 2015
June 24th, 2015
[renodr] - Update to libtirpc-0.3.2. Fixes #6616.
[ken] - Add Module::Build (perl module) for building biber and some of its dependent modules with perl-5.22 . Fixes #6565.
[ken] - Update to 2015 texlive. Fixes #6600.
[fernando] - Update to epiphany-3.16.2. Fixes #6644.
[fernando] - Update to mesa-10.5.8. Fixes #6643.
[fernando] - Update to Berkeley DB 6.1.26. Fixes #6642.
[fernando] - Poppler-0.33.0 can be compiled with support for QT4 and QT5 at once. Fixes #6634.
[fernando] - CVS-1.11.23: comment out test suite. Fixes #6636.
[fernando] - PulseAudio-6.0: remove uneeded "Command Explanation".
[fernando] - Wicd-1.7.3, Hd2u-1.0.3 and Graphviz-2.38.0: changes related to URL.
June 23rd, 2015
[ken] - Move 'Setting the PATH for TeX Live' to the start of the typesetting chapter. For the binary install this makes no difference, but for the 2015 source install it will ease the new steps necessary to make latex and context usable.
[fernando] - Update to libevdev-1.4.3. Fixes #6637.
[fernando] - gdk-pixbuf-2.31.4, Pango-1.36.8 and Cairo-1.14.2: fix dependencies. Fixes #6638.
[fernando] - Update to LibTIFF-4.0.4. Fixes #6635.
June 22nd, 2015
[renodr] - Update to elfutils-0.163. Fixes #6630.
[ken] - Text cleanups in texlive (binary and source) before starting the 2015 changes, and correct the bogus shm/ directory when talking about how to install the non-wide ncurses (so, I guess nobody ever tried that).
[ken] - Move asymptote to the typesetting chapter.
[Chris] - Text updates on Fluxbox page.
June 20th, 2015
June 19th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Simplify qt4 and qt5 install instructions.
[fernando] - Update to mariadb-10.0.20. Fixes #6627.
[fernando] - Update to harfbuzz-0.9.41. Fixes #6625.
[fernando] - Update to wireshark-1.12.6. Fixes #6624.
[fernando] - Update to lua-5.3.1. Fixes #6623.
[fernando] - Update to Archive-Zip-1.48 (Perl Module). Fixes #6622.
[fernando] - Update to hdparm-9.48. Fixes #6621.
[fernando] - Update to nss-3.19.2. Fixes #6620.
June 18th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Remove appdata-tools because its functions are now provided by appstream-glib.
[bdubbs] - Update to bluez-5.31. Fixes #6612.
June 17th, 2015
June 16th, 2015
June 15th, 2015
[fernando] - Firefox-38.0.5, SeaMonkey-2.33.1 and Thunderbird-38.0.1 fixes to build with FreeType-2.6. Fixes #6611.
[fernando] - Update to fontforge-20150612. Fixes #6607.
[fernando] - Update to postgresql-9.4.4. Fixes #6606.
[fernando] - Update to sysstat-11.1.5. Fixes #6605.
[fernando] - Update to stunnel-5.18. Fixes #6604.
June 14th, 2015
June 13th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to xf86-input-wacom-0.30.0. Fixes #6586.
[bdubbs] - Recommend building gst-plugins-bad with clang to avoid video problems. Fixes #6577.
[fernando] - Update to cups-filters-1.0.69. Fixes #6599.
[fernando] - Update to elfutils-0.162. Fixes #6597.
[fernando] - Update to openssl-1.0.2c. Fixes #6596.
[fernando] - Update to gnupg-2.1.5. Fixes #6595.
[fernando] - Update to thunderbird-38.0.1. Fixes #6593.
[fernando] - More short descriptions. #6602.
[pierre] - Update to PHP-5.6.10. Fixes #6598.
[pierre] - Update to LVM2-2.02.121. Fixes #6603.
June 12th, 2015
June 11th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Add/update some short descriptions. Thanks to Denis Mugnier for the patch. Fixes #6594.
June 10th, 2015
[fernando] - Resize window does not work for some gtk3 applications. Fixes #6590.
June 9th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to cups-2.0.3. Fixes #6584.
[fernando] - Update to colord-1.2.11. Fixes #6582.
[fernando] - Update to iso-codes-3.58. Fixes #6581.
[fernando] - Update to libjpeg-turbo-1.4.1. Fixes #6580.
[fernando] - Update to freetype-2.6. Fixes #6579.
[fernando] - Update to gpgme-1.5.5. Fixes #6578.
June 8th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Add a sed to fix js-17 and js-24 build issues when perl-5.22 is installed. Thanks to Chris Staub for the report. Fixes #6574.
[ken] - Update to Text::BibTeX-0.71 (perl module). Fixes #6556.
[ken] - Update to autovivification-0.15 (perl module). Fixes #6503.
[fernando] - Update to mesa-10.5.7. Fixes #6576.
[fernando] - Update to whois_5.2.9. Fixes #6575.
[fernando] - Add note to Cogl-1.20.0 about possible issues when using -jN (N>1).
June 7th, 2015
June 6th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to v4l-utils-1.6.3. Fixes #6470.
[bdubbs] - Add 'Using Multiple Processors' to Notes on Building Software.
June 5th, 2015
June 3rd, 2015
June 2nd, 2015
[fernando] - Update to firefox-38.0.5. Fixes #6563.
[fernando] - Update to openbox-3.6. Fixes #6562.
[fernando] - Update to libtirpc-0.3.1. Fixes #6561.
[fernando] - Update to mercurial-3.4.1. Fixes #6560.
[fernando] - Update to cmake-3.2.3. Fixes #6559.
[fernando] - Update to pinentry-0.9.3. Fixes #6558.
June 1st, 2015
[fernando] - Update to zsh-5.0.8. Fixes #6555.
[fernando] - Update to audacious-3.6.2, audacious-plugins-3.6.2. Fixes #6554.
[fernando] - Update to balsa-2.5.2. Fixes #6553.
[fernando] - Update to sharutils-4.15.2. Fixes #6552.
[pierre] - Update to icedtea-web-1.6. Fixes #6451.
[bdubbs] - Update to qemu-2.3.0. Fixes #6438.
[bdubbs] - Move generic PAM configuration from shadow to the PAM section.
May 30th, 2015
May 29th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to proftpd-1.3.5a. Fixes #6547.
[fernando] - Update to qt-4.8.7. Fixes #6548.
[fernando] - Update to samba-4.2.2. Fixes #6546.
[fernando] - Update to evince-3.16.1. Fixes #6549.
[fernando] - Update to nss-3.19.1. Fixes #6545.
[fernando] - Update to llvm-3.6.1. Fixes #6542.
[fernando] - Update to git-2.4.2. Fixes #6541.
[fernando] - Update to xkeyboard-config-2.15. Fixes #6543.
[fernando] - More short descriptions. Fixes #6544.
May 26th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to cracklib-2.9.4. Fixes #6400.
[fernando] - Update to mesa-10.5.6. Fixes #6532.
[fernando] - Update to exo-0.10.6. Fixes #6538.
[fernando] - Update to mpg123-1.22.2. Fixes #6539.
[fernando] - Add some forgotten short descriptions to: keyutils, exempi, apr-util, gobject-introspection, icu and json-glib. Fixes #6540.
May 25th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to feh-2.13.1. Fixes #6537.
[fernando] - Update to clutter-gst-3.0.6. Fixes #6536.
[fernando] - Update to Python-2.7.10. Fixes #6535.
[fernando] - Update to qpdf-5.1.3. Fixes #6534.
[fernando] - Update to xapian-core-1.2.21. Fixes #6533.
[fernando] - Update to lcms2-2.7. Fixes #6531.
May 24th, 2015
[pierre] - Update to GCC-5.1.0. Fixes #6430.
[renodr] - Add a sed to fix a compilation issue with Valgrind on systems that have a linux-4.x based kernel. Thanks to Armin K. for sending me that sed.
May 23rd, 2015
May 22nd, 2015
May 21st, 2015
May 20th, 2015
[renodr] - Update to xvinfo-1.1.3. Partially fixes #6456.
[renodr] - Update to kbproto-1.0.7. Partially fixes #6456.
[renodr] - Update to libXt-1.1.5. Partially fixes #6456.
[renodr] - Update to libXrender-0.9.9. Partially fixes #6456.
[renodr] - Update to libxkbfile-1.0.9. Partially fixes #6456.
[renodr] - Update to libXaw-1.0.13. Partially fixes #6456.
[renodr] - Update to libpciaccess-0.13.4. Partially fixes #6456.
[renodr] - Update to libfontenc-1.1.3. Partially fixes #6456.
[renodr] - Update to libFS-1.0.7. Partially fixes #6456.
[renodr] - Update to libXrandr-1.5.0. Partially fixes #6456.
[renodr] - Update to randrproto-1.5.0. Fixes #6511.
[fernando] - Update to soundtouch-1.9.0. Fixes #6521.
[fernando] - Update to webkitgtk-2.4.9. Fixes #6524.
[fernando] - Update to LVM2.2.02.120. Fixes #6508.
[fernando] - Update to whois_5.2.8. Fixes #6522.
[fernando] - Revert modification by Fernando which reverted another one by Douglas: I was wrong and the test suite for unzip fails for target generic, introduced by Ken, that I failed to notice. Apologies to Douglas, Ken and everybody else for the problematic noise.
May 19th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to xfdesktop-4.12.2. Fixes #6515.
[fernando] - Update to Thunar-1.6.9. Fixes #6514.
[fernando] - Update to xfburn-0.5.4. Fixes #6513.
[fernando] - Update to xfwm4-4.12.3. Fixes #6512.
[fernando] - Update to libisoburn-1.4.0. Fixes #6520.
[fernando] - Update to libisofs-1.4.0. Fixes #6519.
[fernando] - Update to libburn-1.4.0. Fixes #6518.
[fernando] - Revert modification by Douglas: there is a test suite for unzip.
[fernando] - GnuPG-2.1.4: warning about upgrading to gnupg version 2.1 and remove "--disable-ldap: This switch is necessary, if OpenLDAP-2.4.40 is not installed". Move OpenLDAP-2.4.40 to Optional.
May 18th, 2015
May 17th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to thunderbird-31.7.0. Fixes #6509.
May 16th, 2015
May 15th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to dbus-1.8.18. Fixes #6502.
[fernando] - Update to dovecot-2.2.18. Fixes #6505.
[fernando] - Update to php-5.6.9. Fixes #6504.
[fernando] - Update to git-2.4.1. Fixes #6499.
[fernando] - Update to gdb-7.9.1. Fixes #6498.
[fernando] - Update to mesa-10.5.5. Fixes #6485.
[fernando] - Update to gtk+-2.24.28. Fixes #6500.
[fernando] - Update to glib-2.44.1. Fixes #6497.
[fernando] - Update to clutter-1.22.2. Fixes #6488.
May 13th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to wireshark-1.12.5. Fixes #6495.
[fernando] - Update to gnupg-2.1.4. Fixes #6492.
[fernando] - Update to libassuan-2.2.1. Fixes #6493.
[fernando] - Update to epiphany-3.16.1. Partially fixes #6480.
[fernando] - Update to webkitgtk-2.8.2. Fixes #6490.
[fernando] - Update to gtk+-3.16.3. Fixes #6487.
[fernando] - Update to gdk-pixbuf-2.31.4. Fixes #6486.
[fernando] - Update to firefox-38.0. Fixes #6491.
[fernando] - Update to krb5-1.13.2. Fixes #6482.
[fernando] - Update to pinentry-0.9.2. Fixes #6484.
May 11th, 2015
May 10th, 2015
May 9th, 2015
[pierre] - Improve wording an explanations for OpenJDK tests and cacerts generation. Adapted from a patch by Paul Rogers.
[fernando] - Update to libreoffice-4.4.3. Fixes #6475.
May 8th, 2015
May 7th, 2015
[ken] - Update to File::Which-1.18. Fixes #6471.
[fernando] - Update to rpcbind-0.2.3. Fixes #6440.
[fernando] - Update to autofs-5.1.1. Fixes #6425.
[fernando] - Update to libtirpc-0.3.0. Fixes #6467.
[fernando] - Update to lxpanel-0.8.1. Fixes #6469.
[fernando] - Update to Thunar-1.6.8. Fixes #6468.
[ken] - Update to File::Which-1.17. Fixes #6450.
May 6th, 2015
[ken] - Update to biblatex-biber-2.0 with consequential changes to perl modules: remove Readonly::XS, add Test::Differences, Test::Pod, Test::Pod::Coverage, Text::Roman. Fixes #6433. Special thanks to Philip Kime for diagnosing my runtime problems: I had an old (development) version of biblatex-3.0.tds and failed to notice firefox had renamed the new download as '(1)'.
[fernando] - Update to network-manager-applet-1.0.2. Fixes #6466.
[fernando] - Update to NetworkManager-1.0.2. Fixes #6465.
[fernando] - Update to nss-3.19. Fixes #6464.
May 4th, 2015
May 3rd, 2015
[fernando] - Update to LVM2.2.02.119. Fixes #6459.
[fernando] - Update to git-2.4.0. Fixes #6448.
[fernando] - Update to stunnel-5.17. Fixes #6419.
[fernando] - Update to mercurial-3.4. Fixes #6458.
[fernando] - Update to brasero-3.12.1. Fixes #6453.
[fernando] - Update to totem-pl-parser-3.10.5. Fixes #6452.
[fernando] - Update to pcre-8.37. Fixes #6455.
[fernando] - Update to libtasn1-4.5. Fixes #6454.
[fernando] - exim-4.85: http URL broken again. Fixes #6460.
[fernando] - GnuPG-2.1.3 won't build without openldap. Fixes #6457.
May 2nd, 2015
[pierre] - Update to Openjdk-1.8.0.45. Fixes #6431.
May 1st, 2015
[bdubbs] - Minor updates to pango dependencies and freeglut dependencies and build instructions.
[fernando] - All Xorg HTTP are broken, including an Additional Download of tigervnc. Partially fixes #6447.
April 30th, 2015
April 29th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to curl-7.42.1. Fixes #6443.
April 28th, 2015
April 27th, 2015
[fernando] - Emacs-24.5: test instructions accidentally misses a word. Fixes #6436.
[ken] - gcc-5 fixes for: mdadm-3.3.2, xorg-server-1.17.1, qt-4.8.6.
April 26th, 2015
[fernando] - neon-0.30.1: fix some code when building with gnutls-3.4 and later.
[fernando] - samba-4.2.1: fix some code when building with gnutls-3.4 and later.
[fernando] - emacs-24.5: code broken with gnutls-3.4 and later.
[fernando] - Update to gnutls-3.4.0. Fixes #6380.
[fernando] - Update to nettle-3.1.1. Fixes #5152.
[fernando] - Update to p11-kit-0.23.1. Fixes #6355.
April 25th, 2015
[igor] - Update to mesa-10.5.4. Fixes #6435.
April 24th, 2015
April 23rd, 2015
[fernando] - Update to libpcap-1.7.3. Fixes #6429.
April 22nd, 2015
April 21th, 2015
April 20th, 2015
[ken] - archive Mako and its dependency of Setuptools, they are no longer required by MesaLib.
[fernando] - Update to midori-0.5.10. Fixes #6420.
April 19th, 2015
April 18th, 2015
April 17th, 2015
[renodr] - Update to xmodmap-1.0.9. Partially fixes #6418.
[renodr] - Update to twm-1.0.9. Partially fixes #6418.
[renodr] - Update to xkbevd-1.1.4. Partially fixes #6418.
[renodr] - Update to xhost-1.0.7. Partially fixes #6418.
[renodr] - Update to xgamma-1.0.6. Partially fixes #6418.
[renodr] - Update to xev-1.2.2. Partially fixes #6418.
[renodr] - Update to xdriinfo-1.0.5. Partially fixes #6418.
[renodr] - Update to xdpyinfo-1.3.2. Partially fixes #6418.
[renodr] - Update to setxkbmap-1.3.1. Partially fixes #6418.
[renodr] - Update to smproxy-1.0.6. Partially fixes #6418.
[renodr] - Update to xcmsdb-1.0.5. Partially fixes #6418.
[renodr] - Update to x11perf-1.6.0. Partially fixes #6418.
[renodr] - Update to xlsatoms-1.1.2. Partially fixes #6418.
[renodr] - Update to ntfs-3g-2015.3.14. Fixes #6381.
[fernando] - Update to php-5.6.8. Fixes #6414.
[fernando] - Update to samba-4.2.1. Fixes #6407.
[fernando] - Update to stunnel-5.15. Fixes #6411.
[fernando] - Update to gnumeric-1.12.22. Fixes #6416.
[fernando] - Update to goffice-0.10.22. Fixes #6415.
[fernando] - Update to libgsf-1.14.33. Fixes #6413.
April 16th, 2015
[renodr] - Update to libksba-1.3.3. Fixes #6404.
[renodr] - Update to gpgme-1.5.3. Fixes #6401.
[renodr] - Update to libgpg-error-1.19. Fixes #6403.
[fernando] - Update to setuptools-15.1. Fixes #6406.
[fernando] - Update to cmake-3.2.2. Fixes #6405.
[fernando] - Update to nano-2.4.1. Fixes #6402.
[fernando] - midori-0.5.9: fix build with glib-2.43 or newer.
[fernando] - Update to vala-0.28.0. Fixes #6409.
[fernando] - Update to nautilus-3.16.1. Fixes #6408.
April 15th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to Gnome 3.16.1: gsettings-desktop-schemas-3.16.1, yelp-xsl-3.16.1, gvfs-1.24.1, gnome-desktop-3.16.1, dconf-editor-3.16.1, notification-daemon-3.16.1, baobab-3.16.1, cheese-3.16.1, eog-3.16.1, file-roller-3.16.1, gnome-terminal-3.16.1, and gucharmap-3.16.1. Final fixes for #6391.
[fernando] - Update to pygobject-3.16.1. Fixes #6399.
April 14th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to webkitgtk-2.8.1. Fixes #6398.
[fernando] - Really fix the URL for PyGObject3.
[fernando] - Update to gtk+-3.16.2. Fixes #6397.
[fernando] - Update to cups-filters-1.0.68. Fixes #6394.
[fernando] - Update to xterm-318. Fixes #6396.
[fernando] - Update to ruby-2.2.2. Fixes #6395.
April 13th, 2015
April 12th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to ffmpeg-2.6.2. Fixes #6389.
April 11th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to emacs-24.5. Fixes #6388.
[fernando] - Certificate Authority Certificates statistics: update and s/Bundle/Certificate/.
April 10th, 2015
April 9th, 2015
April 8th, 2015
April 7th, 2015
April 6th, 2015
April 5th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to gnome-system-monitor-3.16.0. Fixes #6311.
[bdubbs] - Update to gucharmap-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[bdubbs] - Update to gnome-screenshot-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[bdubbs] - Update to file-roller-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[bdubbs] - Update to eog-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[bdubbs] - Update to audacious-3.6.1. Fixes #6368.
[pierre] - Pango: move cairo and Xorg libraries from required to recommended, as pango may be used on servers not runing Xorg. Thanks to William Harington for pointing that.
[fernando] - upower: remove executables in /usr/libexec from the list of installed programs.
[fernando] - openssh: remove executables in /usr/libexec from Short Descriptions.
[fernando] - openbox: remove executables in /usr/libexec from the list of installed programs.
[fernando] - notification-daemon: remove all executables from the list of installed programs.
[fernando] - NetworkManager: remove executables in /usr/libexec from the list of installed programs.
[fernando] - LXDM: remove executables in /usr/libexec from the list of installed programs.
[fernando] - gvfs: remove executables in /usr/libexec from the list of installed programs.
[pierre] - Update to imlib2-1.4.7. Fixes #6369.
[fernando] - gnome-terminal: remove executables in /usr/libexec from the list of installed programs.
[fernando] - Gcr: remove executables in /usr/libexec from the list of installed programs.
[fernando] - evince: remove executables in /usr/libexec from the list of installed programs.
[fernando] - dconf: remove executables in /usr/libexec from Short Descriptions.
[fernando] - colord: remove executables in /usr/libexec from the list of installed programs.
[fernando] - ssh-askpass: remove executables in /usr/libexec from the list of installed programs.
April 4th, 2015
[pierre] - Gnupg2: remove executables in /usr/libexec from the list of installed programs.
[bdubbs] - Update to totem-3.16.0. Fixes #6300.
[bdubbs] - Update to clutter-gst-3.0.4.
[bdubbs] - Update to logrotate-3.9.1. Fixes #6366.
[pierre] - Change the test instructions in OpenJDK to account for the new version of the jtreg test harness.
[pierre] - Update to gnupg2-2.0.27. Fixes #6363.
[renodr] - Update to baobab-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[fernando] - Update to libreoffice-4.4.2. Fixes #6362.
[pierre] - Update to setuptools-15.0. Fixes #6367.
April 3rd, 2015
April 2nd, 2015
April 1st, 2015
March 31st, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to firefox-37.0. Fixes #6349.
[bdubbs] - Update to fontforge-20150330. Fixes #6350.
[bdubbs] - Update to dejagnu-1.5.3. Partially fixes #6347.
[bdubbs] - Update to epiphany-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[bdubbs] - Update gtkwebkit-2.6 to gtkwebkit-2.8.0. Fixes #6296.
[bdubbs] - Update both gtkwebkit sections to build with glib-2.44 and later.
[fernando] - Update to yelp-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[fernando] - Update to yelp-xsl-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[fernando] - Update to notification-daemon-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
March 30th, 2015
[fernando] - Update to gnome-themes-standard-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[fernando] - Update to adwaita-icon-theme-3.16.0. Fixes #6345.
[pierre] - Update to libtasn1-4.4. Fixes #6343.
[fernando] - Update to gnome-terminal-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[fernando] - Add new package dconf-editor-3.16.0 to DConf-0.24.0 page. Fixes #6341.
[fernando] - Update to DConf-0.24.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[fernando] - Update to VTE-0.40.0. Fixes #6321.
March 29th, 2015
[renodr] - Update to whois-5.2.7. Fixes #6339.
[fernando] - Update to gnome-calculator-3.16.0. Fixes #6304.
[bdubbs] - Update to icu-55.1. Fixes #6338.
[fernando] - Update to gtksourceview-3.16.0. Fixes #6303.
[fernando] - Update to Gedit-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[fernando] - Enchant-1.6.0: disable-static, fixes and tweaks.
[fernando] - Aspell-0.60.6.1: tweaks.
[pierre] - Update to Mesa-10.5.2. Fixes #6340.
March 28th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to libpeas-1.14.0. Fixes #6320.
[pierre] - Update to Fontforge-20150228. Fixes #6024.
[bdubbs] - Correct tcl sed. Fixes #6336.
[bdubbs] - Update to mc-4.8.14. Fixes #6335.
[renodr] - Update to whois-5.2.5. Fixes #6203.
[renodr] - Update to libidn-1.30. Fixes #6189.
[renodr] - Update to vlc-2.2.0. Fixes #6222.
[fernando] - Update to cheese-3.16.0. Tagged as built. Needs to be checked in hardware. #6337.
[fernando] - Update to gvfs-1.24.0. Fixes #6332.
[renodr] - Update to xterm-317. Fixes #6334.
[fernando] - Update to evince-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[fernando] - Update to nautilus-3.16.0. Partially fixes #6311.
[fernando] - Update to gnome-desktop-3.16.0. Fixes #6301.
[fernando] - Update to gsettings-desktop-schemas-3.16.0. Fixes #6302.
[pierre] - Update to Unbound-1.5.3. Fixes #6270.
[Chris] - Added libxfce4ui as required dependency for Garcon. Thanks to Pusztito in IRC for bringing this to my attention.
March 27th, 2015
[renodr] - Update to libXfont-1.5.1. Fixes #6269.
[renodr] - Update to libdrm-2.4.60. Fixes #6274.
[renodr] - Update to libXdmcp-1.1.2. Fixes #6281.
[bdubbs] - Update to wpa_supplicant-2.4. Fixes #6258.
[bdubbs] - Update to File::Which-1.12. Fixes #6329.
[bdubbs] - Update to pulseaudio-6.0. Fixes #6169.
[fernando] - Updates to xf86-input-evdev-2.9.2 and xf86-input-synaptics-1.8.2. Fixes #6331.
[ken] - Use a more-reliable patch for openssl.
[fernando] - Update to clutter-1.22.0. Fixes #6312.
[fernando] - alsa-plugins: sed command inserts too many lines. Fixes #6333.
[fernando] - Update to dhcpcd-6.8.1. Fixes #6330.
[fernando] - epdfview-0.1.8: fixes related to DE.
[fernando] - Update to librsvg-2.40.9. Fixes #6328.
[pierre] - Update to stunnel-5.14. Fixes #6323.
March 26th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to unrar-5.2.7. Fixes #6324.
[bdubbs] - Update to Archive::Zip-1.46. Fixes #6325.
[bdubbs] - Update to libdvdread-5.0.3. Fixes #6326.
[bdubbs] - Update to pygobject-3.16.0. Fixes #6316.
[bdubbs] - Update to libpangomm-2.36.0. Fixes #6319.
[bdubbs] - Update to gtkmm-3.16.0. Fixes #6318.
[bdubbs] - Update to at-spi2-{core,atk}-2.16.0. Fixes #6317.
[bdubbs] - Update to color-icon-theme-0.15. Fixes #6315.
[bdubbs] - Update to gobject-introspection-1.44.0. Fixes #6314.
[fernando] - Update to gvfs-1.22.4. Fixes #6265.
[fernando] - Update to gtk+3-3.16.0. Fixes #6294.
[fernando] - Update to libsoup-2.50.0. Fixes #6298.
[bdubbs] - More updates to openldap incorporating a consolidated patch.
[pierre] - Update to LVM2-2.02.118. Fixes #6308.
[pierre] - Update to php-5.6.7. Fixes #6287.
[pierre] - Update to dovecot-2.2.16. Fixes #6257.
[dj] - Use LMDB by default for OpenLDAP.
[fernando] - Update to samba-4.2.0. Fixes #6201.
March 25th, 2015
March 24th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to libreoffice-4.4.1.2. Fixes #6217.
[fernando] - Update to atk-2.16.0. Fixes #6299.
[fernando] - Security patch for Little CMS-1.19.
[fernando] - Update to Setuptools-14.3.1. Fixes #6288.
[bdubbs] - Update to dhcp-4.3.2. Fixes #6224.
[bdubbs] - Update to nss-3.18. Fixes #6283.
[bdubbs] - Update to gparted-0.22.0. Fixes #6307.
[bdubbs] - Update to stunnel-5.13. Fixes #6250.
[bdubbs] - Update openldap instructions. Disable incompatible use of Berkeley DB.
[fernando] - Update to seamonkey-2.33.1. Fixes #6305.
March 23rd, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to xfce4-power-manager-1.4.4. Fixes #6306.
[bdubbs] - Update to xfdesktop-4.12.1. Fixes #6295.
[bdubbs] - Update to joe-4.0. Fixes #6291.
[pierre] - Update to Wireshark-1.12.4. Fixes #6204.
[pierre] - Update to Libpcap-1.7.2. Fixes #6242.
[bdubbs] - Update to libva-1.5.1 / libva-intel-driver-1.5.1. Fixes #6293.
[bdubbs] - Update to xf86-input-wacom-0.29.0. Fixes #6264.
[bdubbs] - Update to udisks-2.1.5. Fixes #6223.
[bdubbs] - Update to seahorse-3.14.1. Fixes #6211.
[bdubbs] - Update to mariadb-10.0.17. Fixes #6207.
[bdubbs] - Update to sudo-1.8.13. Fixes #6284.
[bdubbs] - Update to harfbuzz-0.9.40. Fixes #6285.
[bdubbs] - Update to which-2.21. Fixes #6286.
[Chris] - Removed fixup command for Qt5 - problem has been fixed in latest Qt5 version.
March 22nd, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to bind-9.10.2. Fixes #6200.
[bdubbs] - Update to Berkeley db-6.1.23. Fixes #6206.
[fernando] - Update to firefox-36.0.4. Fixes #6289.
[bdubbs] - Update to tigervnc-1.4.3. Fixes #6218.
[igor] - Update to git-2.3.3.
[igor] - Update to libwebp-0.4.3.
[fernando] - Update to ImageMagick-6.9.1-0. Fixes #6000.
[igor] - Update to qemu-2.2.1.
[pierre] - Update to Qt-5.4.1. Fixes #6174.
March 21st, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to alsa-{firmware,plugins,tools}-1.0.29. Fixes #6275, #6277, and #6279
[bdubbs] - Update to openssh-6.8p1. Fixes #6273.
[bdubbs] - Update to pinentry-0.9.1. Fixes #6271.
[bdubbs] - Update to json-glib-1.0.4. Fixes #6251.
[bdubbs] - Update to evince-3.14.2. Fixes #6266.
[ken] - Update to openssl-1.0.2a. Fixes #6282.
[renodr] - Update to Unicode-Collate 1.12. Fixes #6263.
[renodr] - Update to NET-DNS 0.83. Fixes #6194.
[bdubbs] - Update to freeglut-3.0.0. Fixes #6244.
[bdubbs] - Update to talloc-2.1.2. Fixes #6240.
[bdubbs] - Update to poppler-0.32.0. Fixes #6227.
March 20th, 2015
March 19th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to bluez-5.29. Fixes #6253.
[bdubbs] - Update to seamonkey-2.33. Fixes #6245.
[fernando] - Update to cups-filters-1.0.67. Fixes #6268.
[pierre] - Update to mercurial-3.3.2. Fixes #6197.
[bdubbs] - libtiff - incorporate existing sed and nine upstream patches into a consolidated patch. Fixes #6229.
[ken] - extend the epdfview fixes patch with a change from Tim Tassonis : it turns out that many PDFs have not rendered correctly since poppler-0.22, and nobody noticed.
[bdubbs] - Update to tcl-8.6.4/tk-8.6.4. Fixes #6256.
[igor] - Update to ffmpeg-2.6.1.
[igor] - Update to fdk-aac-0.1.4.
March 18th, 2015
[pierre] - Update to gnumeric-1.12.21. Fixes #6216.
[pierre] - Update to goffice010-0.10.21.. Fixes #6226.
[pierre] - Update to gtk+3-3.14.9.. Fixes #6238.
[pierre] - Update to gdk-pixbuf-2.31.3. Fixes #6236.
[pierre] - Update to librsvg-2.40.8. Fixes #6193.
[pierre] - Update to libgsf-1.14.32. Fixes #6188.
[bdubbs] - Update to audacious-3.6. Fixes #6221.
March 17th, 2015
[bdubbs] - Update to kde-14.12.3. Fixes #6261.
[bdubbs] - Update to libxfce4ui-4.12.1.
[bdubbs] - Update to xfce4-session-4.12.1.
[bdubbs] - Update to xfwm4-4.12.2.
[igor] - Update to unbound-1.5.2. Fixes #6163.
[pierre] - Update to libvdpau-1.1. Fixes #6262.
[pierre] - Update to libXvMC-1.0.9. Fixes #6260.
[pierre] - Update to font-util-1.3.1. Fixes #6259.
[pierre] - Update to Setuptools-14.3. Fixes #6255.
March 16th, 2015
March 15th, 2015
[pierre] - Update to libvdpau-1.0. Fixes #6234.
[pierre] - Update to libX11-1.6.3. Fixes #6233.
[pierre] - Update to xterm-316. Fixes #6210.
[pierre] - Update to libevdev-1.4. Fixes #6209.
[pierre] - Update to llvm-3.6.0. Fixes #6196.
[pierre] - Update to libgcrypt-1.6.3. Fixes #6187.
[pierre] - Update to libXxf86vm-1.1.4. Fixes #6172.
[pierre] - Update to Mesa-10.5.1. Fixes #6142.
[pierre] - Add Setuptools-14.1.1 and Mako-1.0.1 Python modules, as they are needed by Mesa-10.5.1.
[igor] - Update to firefox-36.0.1. Fixes #6228.
[igor] - Update to alsa-utils-1.0.29. Fixes #6249.
[igor] - Update to libvorbis-1.3.5. Fixes #6220.
[igor] - Update to alsa-lib-1.0.29. Fixes #6219.
[igor] - Update to gtk+-2.24.27. Fixes #6237.
[igor] - Update to randrproto-1.4.1. Fixes #6248.
[igor] - Update to nasm-2.11.08. Fixes #6198.
[igor] - Update to cairo-1.14.2. Fixes #6243.
March 14th, 2015
March 13th, 2015
March 12th, 2015
[pierre] - Update to Python3-3.4.3. Fixes #6199.
[Chris] - Removed gtk2 and pango as recommended dependencies of sawfish - both must be installed due to required dependency rep-gtk.
[Chris] - Updated rep-gtk depedencies - now needs gtk2, not libglade.
March 11th, 2015
[pierre] - Update to Ruby-2.2.1. Fixes #6180.
March 10th, 2015
March 9th, 2015
March 8th, 2015
[pierre] - Update to LVM2-2.02.117. Fixes #6185.
March 6th, 2015
[ken] - Remove the unrecognized --with-firmware-path switch from udev-extras.
[bdubbs] - Release of BLFS-7.7.
Last updated on 2015-09-30 20:43:29 -0700
The linuxfromscratch.org server is hosting a number of mailing lists that are used for the development of the BLFS book. These lists include, among others, the main development and support lists.
For more information regarding which lists are available, how to subscribe to them, archive locations, etc., visit http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/mail.html.
Last updated on 2007-04-04 12:42:53 -0700
The BLFS Project has created a Wiki for users to comment on pages and instructions at http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki. Comments are welcome from all users.
The following are the rules for posting:
Users must register and log in to edit a page.
Suggestions to change the book should be made by creating a new ticket, not by making comments in the Wiki.
Questions with your specific installation problems should be made by subscribing and mailing to the BLFS Support Mailing List at mailto:blfs-support AT linuxfromscratch D0T org.
Discussions of build instructions should be made by subscribing and mailing to the BLFS Development List at mailto:blfs-dev AT linuxfromscratch D0T org.
Inappropriate material will be removed.
Last updated on 2007-04-04 12:42:53 -0700
If you encounter a problem while using this book, and your problem is not listed in the FAQ (http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq), you will find that most of the people on Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and on the mailing lists are willing to help you. An overview of the LFS mailing lists can be found in Mailing lists. To assist us in diagnosing and solving your problem, include as much relevant information as possible in your request for help.
Before asking for help, you should review the following items:
Is the hardware support compiled into the kernel or
available as a module to the kernel? If it is a module,
is it configured properly in modprobe.conf and has it been loaded?
You should use lsmod as the
root user to see if
it's loaded. Check the sys.log file or run modprobe <driver>
to review any error message. If it loads properly, you
may need to add the modprobe command to
your boot scripts.
Are your permissions properly set, especially for
devices? LFS uses groups to make these settings easier,
but it also adds the step of adding users to groups to
allow access. A simple usermod -G audio <user>
may be all that's necessary for that user to have
access to the sound system. Any question that starts
out with “It works as root,
but not as ...” requires a thorough review
of permissions prior to asking.
BLFS liberally uses /opt/.
The main objection to this centers around the need to
expand your environment variables for each package
placed there (e.g., PATH=$PATH:/opt/kde/bin). In most
cases, the package instructions will walk you through
the changes, but some will not. The section called
“Going Beyond
BLFS” is available to help you check.
<package>
Apart from a brief explanation of the problem you're having, the essential things to include in your request are:
the version of the book you are using (being 7.8),
the package or section giving you problems,
the exact error message or symptom you are receiving,
whether you have deviated from the book or LFS at all,
if you are installing a BLFS package on a non-LFS system.
(Note that saying that you've deviated from the book doesn't mean that we won't help you. It'll just help us to see other possible causes of your problem.)
Expect guidance instead of specific instructions. If you are instructed to read something, please do so. It generally implies that the answer was way too obvious and that the question would not have been asked if a little research was done prior to asking. The volunteers in the mailing list prefer not to be used as an alternative to doing reasonable research on your end. In addition, the quality of your experience with BLFS is also greatly enhanced by this research, and the quality of volunteers is enhanced because they don't feel that their time has been abused, so they are far more likely to participate.
An excellent article on asking for help on the Internet in general has been written by Eric S. Raymond. It is available online at http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html. Read and follow the hints in that document and you are much more likely to get a response to start with and also to get the help you actually need.
Last updated on 2009-09-24 22:43:37 -0700
Many people have contributed both directly and indirectly to BLFS. This page lists all of those we can think of. We may well have left people out and if you feel this is the case, drop us a line. Many thanks to all of the LFS community for their assistance with this project.
Fernando de Oliveira
Bruce Dubbs
Pierre Labastie
Ken Moffat
Douglas Reno
Igor Živković
The list of contributors is far too large to provide detailed information about the contributions for each contributor. Over the years, the following individuals have provided significant inputs to the book:
Timothy Bauscher
Daniel Bauman
Jeff Bauman
Andy Benton
Wayne Blaszczyk
Paul Campbell
Nathan Coulson
Jeroen Coumans
Guy Dalziel
Robert Daniels
Richard Downing
Manuel Canales Esparcia
Jim Gifford
Manfred Glombowski
Ag Hatzimanikas
Mark Hymers
James Iwanek
David Jensen
Jeremy Jones
Seth Klein
Alex Kloss
Eric Konopka
Larry Lawrence
DJ Lucas
Chris Lynn
Andrew McMurry
Randy McMurchy
Denis Mugnier
Billy O'Connor
Alexander Patrakov
Olivier Peres
Andreas Pedersen
Henning Rohde
Matt Rogers
James Robertson
Henning Rohde
Chris Staub
Jesse Tie-Ten-Quee
Ragnar Thomsen
Thomas Trepl
Tushar Teredesai
Jeremy Utley
Zack Winkles
Christian Wurst
Fernando Arbeiza
Miguel Bazdresch
Gerard Beekmans
Oliver Brakmann
Jeremy Byron
Ian Chilton
David Ciecierski
Jim Harris
Lee Harris
Marc Heerdink
Steffen Knollmann
Eric Konopka
Scot McPherson
Ted Riley
Last updated on 2015-09-30 20:43:29 -0700
Please direct your emails to one of the BLFS mailing lists. See Mailing lists for more information on the available mailing lists.
Last updated on 2012-02-05 21:15:51 -0800
This chapter is used to explain some of the policies used throughout the book, to introduce important concepts and to explain some issues you may see with some of the included packages.
Those people who have built an LFS system may be aware of the general principles of downloading and unpacking software. Some of that information is repeated here for those new to building their own software.
Each set of installation instructions contains a URL from which you can download the package. The patches; however, are stored on the LFS servers and are available via HTTP. These are referenced as needed in the installation instructions.
While you can keep the source files anywhere you like, we assume that you have unpacked the package and changed into the directory created by the unpacking process (the 'build' directory). We also assume you have uncompressed any required patches and they are in the directory immediately above the 'build' directory.
We can not emphasize strongly enough that you should start from
a clean source tree each
time. This means that if you have had an error during
configuration or compilation, it's usually best to delete the
source tree and re-unpack it before trying again. This obviously
doesn't apply if you're an advanced user used to hacking
Makefiles and C code, but if in
doubt, start from a clean tree.
The golden rule of Unix System Administration is to use your
superpowers only when necessary. Hence, BLFS recommends that
you build software as an unprivileged user and only become
the root user when installing
the software. This philosophy is followed in all the packages
in this book. Unless otherwise specified, all instructions
should be executed as an unprivileged user. The book will
advise you on instructions that need root privileges.
If a file is in .tar format and
compressed, it is unpacked by running one of the following
commands:
tar -xvf filename.tar.gz tar -xvf filename.tgz tar -xvf filename.tar.Z tar -xvf filename.tar.bz2
You may omit using the v
parameter in the commands shown above and below if you wish
to suppress the verbose listing of all the files in the
archive as they are extracted. This can help speed up the
extraction as well as make any errors produced during the
extraction more obvious to you.
You can also use a slightly different method:
bzcat filename.tar.bz2 | tar -xv
Finally, you sometimes need to be able to unpack patches
which are generally not in .tar
format. The best way to do this is to copy the patch file to
the parent of the 'build' directory and then run one of the
following commands depending on whether the file is a
.gz or .bz2 file:
gunzip -v patchname.gz bunzip2 -v patchname.bz2
Generally, to verify that the downloaded file is genuine and
complete, many package maintainers also distribute md5sums of
the files. To verify the md5sum of the downloaded files,
download both the file and the corresponding md5sum file to
the same directory (preferably from different on-line
locations), and (assuming file.md5sum is the md5sum file downloaded)
run the following command:
md5sum -c file.md5sum
If there are any errors, they will be reported. Note that the
BLFS book includes md5sums for all the source files also. To
use the BLFS supplied md5sums, you can create a file.md5sum (place the md5sum data and the
exact name of the downloaded file on the same line of a file,
separated by white space) and run the command shown above.
Alternately, simply run the command shown below and compare
the output to the md5sum data shown in the BLFS book.
md5sum <name_of_downloaded_file>
For larger packages, it is convenient to create log files
instead of staring at the screen hoping to catch a particular
error or warning. Log files are also useful for debugging and
keeping records. The following command allows you to create
an installation log. Replace <command> with the
command you intend to execute.
( <command> 2>&1 | tee compile.log && exit $PIPESTATUS )
2>&1 redirects error
messages to the same location as standard output. The
tee command
allows viewing of the output while logging the results to a
file. The parentheses around the command run the entire
command in a subshell and finally the exit $PIPESTATUS command
ensures the result of the <command> is returned
as the result and not the result of the tee command.
For many modern systems with multiple processors (or cores) the compilation time for a package can be reduced by performing a "parallel make" by either setting an environment variable or telling the make program how many processors are available. For instance, a Core2Duo can support two simultaneous processes with:
export MAKEFLAGS='-j2'
or just building with:
make -j2
Generally the number of processes should not exceed the
number of cores supported by the CPU. To list the processors
on your system, issue: grep
processor /proc/cpuinfo.
In some cases, using multiple processors may result in a 'race' condition where the success of the build depends on the order of the commands run by the make program. For instance, if an executable needs File A and File B, attempting to link the program before one of the dependent components is available will result in a failure. This condition usually arises because the upstream developer has not properly designated all the prerequsites needed to accomplish a step in the Makefile.
If this occurs, the best way to proceed is to drop back to a single processor build. Adding '-j1' to a make command will override the similar setting in the MAKEFLAGS environment variable.
There are times when automating the building of a package can
come in handy. Everyone has their own reasons for wanting to
automate building, and everyone goes about it in their own
way. Creating Makefiles,
Bash scripts, Perl scripts or simply a list of
commands used to cut and paste are just some of the methods
you can use to automate building BLFS packages. Detailing how
and providing examples of the many ways you can automate the
building of packages is beyond the scope of this section.
This section will expose you to using file redirection and
the yes command
to help provide ideas on how to automate your builds.
You will find times throughout your BLFS journey when you will come across a package that has a command prompting you for information. This information might be configuration details, a directory path, or a response to a license agreement. This can present a challenge to automate the building of that package. Occasionally, you will be prompted for different information in a series of questions. One method to automate this type of scenario requires putting the desired responses in a file and using redirection so that the program uses the data in the file as the answers to the questions.
Building the CUPS package is a good example of how redirecting a file as input to prompts can help you automate the build. If you run the test suite, you are asked to respond to a series of questions regarding the type of test to run and if you have any auxiliary programs the test can use. You can create a file with your responses, one response per line, and use a command similar to the one shown below to automate running the test suite:
make check < ../cups-1.1.23-testsuite_parms
This effectively makes the test suite use the responses in the file as the input to the questions. Occasionally you may end up doing a bit of trial and error determining the exact format of your input file for some things, but once figured out and documented you can use this to automate building the package.
Sometimes you will only need to provide one response, or provide the same response to many prompts. For these instances, the yes command works really well. The yes command can be used to provide a response (the same one) to one or more instances of questions. It can be used to simulate pressing just the Enter key, entering the Y key or entering a string of text. Perhaps the easiest way to show its use is in an example.
First, create a short Bash script by entering the following commands:
cat > blfs-yes-test1 << "EOF"
#!/bin/bash
echo -n -e "\n\nPlease type something (or nothing) and press Enter ---> "
read A_STRING
if test "$A_STRING" = ""; then A_STRING="Just the Enter key was pressed"
else A_STRING="You entered '$A_STRING'"
fi
echo -e "\n\n$A_STRING\n\n"
EOF
chmod 755 blfs-yes-test1
Now run the script by issuing ./blfs-yes-test1 from the command line. It will wait for a response, which can be anything (or nothing) followed by the Enter key. After entering something, the result will be echoed to the screen. Now use the yes command to automate the entering of a response:
yes | ./blfs-yes-test1
Notice that piping yes by itself to the script results in y being passed to the script. Now try it with a string of text:
yes 'This is some text' | ./blfs-yes-test1
The exact string was used as the response to the script. Finally, try it using an empty (null) string:
yes '' | ./blfs-yes-test1
Notice this results in passing just the press of the Enter key to the script. This is useful for times when the default answer to the prompt is sufficient. This syntax is used in the Net-tools instructions to accept all the defaults to the many prompts during the configuration step. You may now remove the test script, if desired.
In order to automate the building of some packages, especially those that require you to read a license agreement one page at a time, requires using a method that avoids having to press a key to display each page. Redirecting the output to a file can be used in these instances to assist with the automation. The previous section on this page touched on creating log files of the build output. The redirection method shown there used the tee command to redirect output to a file while also displaying the output to the screen. Here, the output will only be sent to a file.
Again, the easiest way to demonstrate the technique is to show an example. First, issue the command:
ls -l /usr/bin | more
Of course, you'll be required to view the output one page at
a time because the more filter was used. Now
try the same command, but this time redirect the output to a
file. The special file /dev/null can be used instead of the
filename shown, but you will have no log file to examine:
ls -l /usr/bin | more > redirect_test.log 2>&1
Notice that this time the command immediately returned to the shell prompt without having to page through the output. You may now remove the log file.
The last example will use the yes command in combination with output redirection to bypass having to page through the output and then provide a y to a prompt. This technique could be used in instances when otherwise you would have to page through the output of a file (such as a license agreement) and then answer the question of “do you accept the above?”. For this example, another short Bash script is required:
cat > blfs-yes-test2 << "EOF"
#!/bin/bash
ls -l /usr/bin | more
echo -n -e "\n\nDid you enjoy reading this? (y,n) "
read A_STRING
if test "$A_STRING" = "y"; then A_STRING="You entered the 'y' key"
else A_STRING="You did NOT enter the 'y' key"
fi
echo -e "\n\n$A_STRING\n\n"
EOF
chmod 755 blfs-yes-test2
This script can be used to simulate a program that requires you to read a license agreement, then respond appropriately to accept the agreement before the program will install anything. First, run the script without any automation techniques by issuing ./blfs-yes-test2.
Now issue the following command which uses two automation techniques, making it suitable for use in an automated build script:
yes | ./blfs-yes-test2 > blfs-yes-test2.log 2>&1
If desired, issue tail blfs-yes-test2.log to see the end of the paged output, and confirmation that y was passed through to the script. Once satisfied that it works as it should, you may remove the script and log file.
Finally, keep in mind that there are many ways to automate and/or script the build commands. There is not a single “correct” way to do it. Your imagination is the only limit.
For each package described, BLFS lists the known dependencies. These are listed under several headings, whose meaning is as follows:
Required means that the target package cannot be correctly built without the dependency having first been installed.
Recommended means that BLFS strongly suggests this package is installed first for a clean and trouble-free build, that won't have issues either during the build process, or at run-time. The instructions in the book assume these packages are installed. Some changes or workarounds may be required if these packages are not installed.
Optional means that this package might be installed for added functionality. Often BLFS will describe the dependency to explain the added functionality that will result.
On occasion you may run into a situation in the book when a package will not build or work properly. Though the Editors attempt to ensure that every package in the book builds and works properly, sometimes a package has been overlooked or was not tested with this particular version of BLFS.
If you discover that a package will not build or work properly, you should see if there is a more current version of the package. Typically this means you go to the maintainer's web site and download the most current tarball and attempt to build the package. If you cannot determine the maintainer's web site by looking at the download URLs, use Google and query the package's name. For example, in the Google search bar type: 'package_name download' (omit the quotes) or something similar. Sometimes typing: 'package_name home page' will result in you finding the maintainer's web site.
In LFS, stripping of debugging symbols was discussed a couple of times. When building BLFS packages, there are generally no special instructions that discuss stripping again. It is probably not a good idea to strip an executable or a library while it is in use, so exiting any windowing environment is a good idea. Then you can do:
find /{,usr/}{bin,lib,sbin} -type f -exec strip --strip-unneeded {} \;
If you install programs in other directories such as /opt or /usr/local, you may want to strip the files there too.
For more information on stripping, see http://www.technovelty.org/linux/stripping-shared-libraries.html.
One of the side effects of packages that use Autotools, including libtool, is that they create many files with an .la extension. These files are not needed in an LFS environment. If there are conflicts with pkgconfig entries, they can actually prevent successful builds. You may want to consider removing these files periodically:
find /lib /usr/lib -not -path "*Image*" -a -name \*.la -delete
The above command removes all .la files with the exception of those that have "Image" as a part of the path. These .la files are used by the ImageMagick programs. There may be other exceptions by packages not in BLFS.
Last updated on 2015-06-08 13:08:38 -0700
Should I install XXX in /usr or /usr/local?
This is a question without an obvious answer for an LFS based system.
In traditional Unix systems, /usr
usually contains files that come with the system distribution,
and the /usr/local tree is free
for the local administrator to manage. The only really hard and
fast rule is that Unix distributions should not touch
/usr/local, except perhaps to
create the basic directories within it.
With Linux distributions like Red Hat, Debian, etc., a possible
rule is that /usr is managed by
the distribution's package system and /usr/local is not. This way the package
manager's database knows about every file within /usr.
LFS users build their own system and so deciding where the
system ends and local files begin is not straightforward. So
the choice should be made in order to make things easier to
administer. There are several reasons for dividing files
between /usr and /usr/local.
On a network of several machines all running LFS, or
mixed LFS and other Linux distributions, /usr/local could be used to hold
packages that are common between all the computers in the
network. It can be NFS mounted or mirrored from a single
server. Here local indicates local to the site.
On a network of several computers all running an
identical LFS system, /usr/local could hold packages that are
different between the machines. In this case local refers
to the individual computers.
Even on a single computer, /usr/local can be useful if you have
several distributions installed simultaneously, and want
a place to put packages that will be the same on all of
them.
Or you might regularly rebuild your LFS, but want a place to put files that you don't want to rebuild each time. This way you can wipe the LFS file system and start from a clean partition every time without losing everything.
Some people ask why not use your own directory tree, e.g.,
/usr/site, rather than
/usr/local?
There is nothing stopping you, many sites do make their own
trees, however it makes installing new software more difficult.
Automatic installers often look for dependencies in
/usr and /usr/local, and if the file it is looking for
is in /usr/site instead, the
installer will probably fail unless you specifically tell it
where to look.
What is the BLFS position on this?
All of the BLFS instructions install programs in /usr with optional instructions to install
into /opt for some specific
packages.
Last updated on 2007-04-04 12:42:53 -0700
As you follow the various sections in the book, you will observe that the book occasionally includes patches that are required for a successful and secure installation of the packages. The general policy of the book is to include patches that fall in one of the following criteria:
Fixes a compilation problem.
Fixes a security problem.
Fixes a broken functionality.
In short, the book only includes patches that are either required or recommended. There is a Patches subproject which hosts various patches (including the patches referenced in the books) to enable you to configure your LFS the way you like it.
Last updated on 2007-04-04 12:42:53 -0700
The BLFS Bootscripts package contains the init scripts that are used throughout the book. It is assumed that you will be using the BLFS Bootscripts package in conjunction with a compatible LFS-Bootscripts package. Refer to ../../../../lfs/view/7.8/chapter07/bootscripts.html for more information on the LFS-Bootscripts package.
Package Information
The BLFS Bootscripts package will be used throughout the BLFS
book for startup scripts. Unlike LFS, each init script has a
separate install target in the BLFS Bootscripts package. It is
recommended you keep the package source directory around until
completion of your BLFS system. When a script is requested from
BLFS Bootscripts, simply change to the directory and as the
root user, execute the given
make install-<init-script>
command. This command installs the init script to its proper
location (along with any auxiliary configuration scripts) and
also creates the appropriate symlinks to start and stop the
service at the appropriate run-level.
You should review each bootscript before installation to ascertain that it satisfies your need. Also verify that the start and stop symlinks it creates match your preferences.
From time to time the bootscripts are updated to accomodate new packages or to make minor corrections. All versions of the bootscripts are located at http://anduin.linuxfromscratch.org/sources/BLFS/conglomeration/blfs-bootscripts/.
Last updated on 2014-12-04 14:24:39 -0800
The original libraries were simply an archive of routines from which the required routines were extracted and linked into the executable program. These are described as static libraries (libfoo.a). On some old operating systems they are the only type available.
On almost all Linux platforms there are also shared libraries (libfoo.so) - one copy of the library is loaded into virtual memory, and shared by all the programs which call any of its functions. This is space efficient.
In the past, essential programs such as a shell were often
linked statically so that some form of minimal recovery
system would exist even if shared libraries, such as libc.so,
became damaged (e.g. moved to lost+found after fsck following an unclean
shutdown). Nowadays, most people use an alternative system
install or a Live CD if they have to recover. Journaling
filesystems also reduce the likelihood of this sort of
problem.
Developers, at least while they are developing, often prefer to use static versions of the libraries which their code links to.
Within the book, there are various places where configure switches such as --disable-static are employed, and other places where the possibility of using system versions of libraries instead of the versions included within another package is discussed. The main reason for this is to simplify updates of libraries.
If a package is linked to a dynamic library, updating to a newer library version is automatic once the newer library is installed and the program is (re)started (provided the library major version is unchanged, e.g. going from libfoo.so.2.0 to libfoo.so.2.1. Going to libfoo.so.3 will require recompilation - ldd can be used to find which programs use the old version). If a program is linked to a static library, the program always has to be recompiled. If you know which programs are linked to a particular static library, this is merely an annoyance. But usually you will not know which programs to recompile.
Most libraries are shared, but if you do something unusual,
such as moving a shared library to /lib accidentally breaking the .so symlink in /usr/lib while keeping the static library
in /lib, the static library
will be silently linked into the programs which need it.
One way to identify when a static library is used, is to deal
with it at the end of the installation of every package.
Write a script to find all the static libraries in
/usr/lib or wherever you are
installing to, and either move them to another directory so
that they are no longer found by the linker, or rename them
so that libfoo.a becomes e.g. libfoo.a.hidden. The static
library can then be temporarily restored if it is ever
needed, and the package needing it can be identified. You may
choose to exclude some of the static libraries from glibc if
you do this (libc_nonshared.a, libg.a,
libieee.a, libm.a, libpthread_nonshared.a, librpcsvc.a,
libsupc++.a) to simplify compilation.
If you use this approach, you may discover that more packages than you were expecting use a static library. That was the case with nettle-2.4 in its default static-only configuration: It was required by GnuTLS-3.0.19, but also linked into package(s) which used GnuTLS, such as glib-networking-2.32.3.
Many packages put some of their common functions into a static library which is only used by the programs within the package and, crucially, the library is not installed as a standalone library. These internal libraries are not a problem - if the package has to be rebuilt to fix a bug or vulnerability, nothing else is linked to them.
When BLFS mentions system libraries, it means shared versions of libraries. Some packages such as Firefox-41.0 and ghostscript-9.16 include many other libraries. When they link to them, they link statically so this also makes the programs bigger. The version they ship is often older than the version used in the system, so it may contain bugs - sometimes developers go to the trouble of fixing bugs in their included libraries, other times they do not.
Sometimes, deciding to use system libraries is an easy decision. Other times it may require you to alter the system version (e.g. for libpng-1.6.18 if used for Firefox-41.0). Occasionally, a package ships an old library and can no longer link to the current version, but can link to an older version. In this case, BLFS will usually just use the shipped version. Sometimes the included library is no longer developed separately, or its upstream is now the same as the package's upstream and you have no other packages which will use it. In those cases, you might decide to use the included static library even if you usually prefer to use system libraries.
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/libraries
Last updated on 2015-09-20 15:38:20 -0700
This page contains information about locale related problems and issues. In the following paragraphs you'll find a generic overview of things that can come up when configuring your system for various locales. Many (but not all) existing locale related problems can be classified and fall under one of the headings below. The severity ratings below use the following criteria:
Critical: The program doesn't perform its main function. The fix would be very intrusive, it's better to search for a replacement.
High: Part of the functionality that the program provides is not usable. If that functionality is required, it's better to search for a replacement.
Low: The program works in all typical use cases, but lacks some functionality normally provided by its equivalents.
If there is a known workaround for a specific package, it will appear on that package's page. For the most recent information about locale related issues for individual packages, check the User Notes in the BLFS Wiki.
Severity: Critical
Some programs require the user to specify the character
encoding for their input or output data and present only a
limited choice of encodings. This is the case for the
-X option in a2ps-4.14 and Enscript-1.6.6, the -input-charset option in unpatched Cdrtools,
and the character sets offered for display in the menu of
Links-2.12. If the required encoding is not
in the list, the program usually becomes completely unusable.
For non-interactive programs, it may be possible to work
around this by converting the document to a supported input
character set before submitting to the program.
A solution to this type of problem is to implement the necessary support for the missing encoding as a patch to the original program or to find a replacement.
Severity: High for non-text documents, low for text documents
Some programs, nano-2.4.2 or JOE-4.1 for example, assume that documents are always in the encoding implied by the current locale. While this assumption may be valid for the user-created documents, it is not safe for external ones. When this assumption fails, non-ASCII characters are displayed incorrectly, and the document may become unreadable.
If the external document is entirely text based, it can be converted to the current locale encoding using the iconv program.
For documents that are not text-based, this is not possible. In fact, the assumption made in the program may be completely invalid for documents where the Microsoft Windows operating system has set de facto standards. An example of this problem is ID3v1 tags in MP3 files (see the BLFS Wiki ID3v1Coding page for more details). For these cases, the only solution is to find a replacement program that doesn't have the issue (e.g., one that will allow you to specify the assumed document encoding).
Among BLFS packages, this problem applies to nano-2.4.2, JOE-4.1, and all media players except Audacious-3.6.2.
Another problem in this category is when someone cannot read the documents you've sent them because their operating system is set up to handle character encodings differently. This can happen often when the other person is using Microsoft Windows, which only provides one character encoding for a given country. For example, this causes problems with UTF-8 encoded TeX documents created in Linux. On Windows, most applications will assume that these documents have been created using the default Windows 8-bit encoding.
In extreme cases, Windows encoding compatibility issues may be solved only by running Windows programs under Wine.
Severity: Critical
The POSIX standard mandates that the filename encoding is the
encoding implied by the current LC_CTYPE locale category.
This information is well-hidden on the page which specifies
the behavior of Tar and
Cpio programs. Some programs
get it wrong by default (or simply don't have enough
information to get it right). The result is that they create
filenames which are not subsequently shown correctly by
ls, or they
refuse to accept filenames that ls shows properly. For the
GLib-2.44.1 library, the problem can be
corrected by setting the G_FILENAME_ENCODING environment variable to
the special "@locale" value. Glib2 based programs that don't respect
that environment variable are buggy.
The Zip-3.0 and UnZip-6.0 have this problem because they hard-code the expected filename encoding. UnZip contains a hard-coded conversion table between the CP850 (DOS) and ISO-8859-1 (UNIX) encodings and uses this table when extracting archives created under DOS or Microsoft Windows. However, this assumption only works for those in the US and not for anyone using a UTF-8 locale. Non-ASCII characters will be mangled in the extracted filenames.
The general rule for avoiding this class of problems is to avoid installing broken programs. If this is impossible, the convmv command-line tool can be used to fix filenames created by these broken programs, or intentionally mangle the existing filenames to meet the broken expectations of such programs.
In other cases, a similar problem is caused by importing filenames from a system using a different locale with a tool that is not locale-aware (e.g., OpenSSH-7.1p1). In order to avoid mangling non-ASCII characters when transferring files to a system with a different locale, any of the following methods can be used:
Transfer anyway, fix the damage with convmv.
On the sending side, create a tar archive with the
--format=posix
switch passed to tar (this will be the
default in a future version of tar).
Mail the files as attachments. Mail clients specify the encoding of attached filenames.
Write the files to a removable disk formatted with a FAT or FAT32 filesystem.
Transfer the files using Samba.
Transfer the files via FTP using RFC2640-aware server (this currently means only wu-ftpd, which has bad security history) and client (e.g., lftp).
The last four methods work because the filenames are automatically converted from the sender's locale to UNICODE and stored or sent in this form. They are then transparently converted from UNICODE to the recipient's locale encoding.
Severity: High or critical
Many programs were written in an older era where multibyte locales were not common. Such programs assume that C "char" data type, which is one byte, can be used to store single characters. Further, they assume that any sequence of characters is a valid string and that every character occupies a single character cell. Such assumptions completely break in UTF-8 locales. The visible manifestation is that the program truncates strings prematurely (i.e., at 80 bytes instead of 80 characters). Terminal-based programs don't place the cursor correctly on the screen, don't react to the "Backspace" key by erasing one character, and leave junk characters around when updating the screen, usually turning the screen into a complete mess.
Fixing this kind of problems is a tedious task from a programmer's point of view, like all other cases of retrofitting new concepts into the old flawed design. In this case, one has to redesign all data structures in order to accommodate to the fact that a complete character may span a variable number of "char"s (or switch to wchar_t and convert as needed). Also, for every call to the "strlen" and similar functions, find out whether a number of bytes, a number of characters, or the width of the string was really meant. Sometimes it is faster to write a program with the same functionality from scratch.
Among BLFS packages, this problem applies to xine-ui-0.99.9 and all the shells.
Severity: Low
LFS expects that manual pages are in the language-specific (usually 8-bit) encoding, as specified on the LFS Man DB page. However, some packages install translated manual pages in UTF-8 encoding (e.g., Shadow, already dealt with), or manual pages in languages not in the table. Not all BLFS packages have been audited for conformance with the requirements put in LFS (the large majority have been checked, and fixes placed in the book for packages known to install non-conforming manual pages). If you find a manual page installed by any of BLFS packages that is obviously in the wrong encoding, please remove or convert it as needed, and report this to BLFS team as a bug.
You can easily check your system for any non-conforming manual pages by copying the following short shell script to some accessible location,
#!/bin/sh
# Begin checkman.sh
# Usage: find /usr/share/man -type f | xargs checkman.sh
for a in "$@"
do
# echo "Checking $a..."
# Pure-ASCII manual page (possibly except comments) is OK
grep -v '.\\"' "$a" | iconv -f US-ASCII -t US-ASCII >/dev/null 2>&1 \
&& continue
# Non-UTF-8 manual page is OK
iconv -f UTF-8 -t UTF-8 "$a" >/dev/null 2>&1 || continue
# Found a UTF-8 manual page, bad.
echo "UTF-8 manual page: $a" >&2
done
# End checkman.sh
and then issuing the following command (modify the command
below if the checkman.sh script is not
in your PATH environment
variable):
find /usr/share/man -type f | xargs checkman.sh
Note that if you have manual pages installed in any location
other than /usr/share/man
(e.g., /usr/local/share/man),
you must modify the above command to include this additional
location.
Last updated on 2013-02-11 10:51:17 -0800
The packages that are installed in this book are only the tip of the iceberg. We hope that the experience you gained with the LFS book and the BLFS book will give you the background needed to compile, install and configure packages that are not included in this book.
When you want to install a package to a location other than
/, or /usr, you are installing outside the default
environment settings on most machines. The following examples
should assist you in determining how to correct this situation.
The examples cover the complete range of settings that may need
updating, but they are not all needed in every situation.
Expand the PATH to include
$PREFIX/bin.
Expand the PATH for
root to include
$PREFIX/sbin.
Add $PREFIX/lib to
/etc/ld.so.conf or expand
LD_LIBRARY_PATH to include it.
Before using the latter option, check out http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/_/ldpath.html.
If you modify /etc/ld.so.conf, remember to update
/etc/ld.so.cache by
executing ldconfig as the
root user.
Add $PREFIX/man to
/etc/man_db.conf or expand
MANPATH.
Add $PREFIX/info to
INFOPATH.
Add $PREFIX/lib/pkgconfig
to PKG_CONFIG_PATH. Some
packages are now installing .pc files in $PREFIX/share/pkgconfig, so you may
have to include this directory also.
Add $PREFIX/include to
CPPFLAGS when compiling
packages that depend on the package you installed.
Add $PREFIX/lib to
LDFLAGS when compiling
packages that depend on a library installed by the
package.
If you are in search of a package that is not in the book, the following are different ways you can search for the desired package.
If you know the name of the package, then search Freecode
for it at http://freecode.com/. Also
search Google at http://google.com/. Sometimes a
search for the rpm at
http://rpmfind.net/ or the
deb at http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_packages
can also lead to a link to the package.
If you know the name of the executable, but not the package that the executable belongs to, first try a Google search with the name of the executable. If the results are overwhelming, try searching for the given executable in the Debian repository at http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_contents.
Some general hints on handling new packages:
Many of the newer packages follow the ./configure && make && make install process. Help on the options accepted by configure can be obtained via the command ./configure --help.
Most of the packages contain documentation on compiling and installing the package. Some of the documents are excellent, some not so excellent. Check out the homepage of the package for any additional and updated hints for compiling and configuring the package.
If you are having a problem compiling the package, try searching the LFS archives at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/search.html for the error or if that fails, try searching Google. Often, a distribution will have already solved the problem (many of them use development versions of packages, so they see the changes sooner than those of us who normally use stable released versions). But be cautious - all builders tend to carry patches which are no longer necessary, and to have fixes which are only required because of their particular choices in how they build a package. You may have to search deeply to find a fix for the package version you are trying to use, or even to find the package (names are sometimes not what you might expect, e.g. ghostscript often has a prefix or a suffix in its name), but the following notes might help:
Arch http://www.archlinux.org/packages/
- enter the package name in the 'Keywords' box,
select the package name, select one of the 'SVN
Entries' fields, then select the PKGBUILD to see how they build
this package, or look at any patches.
Debian ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/pool
(use your country's version if there is one) - the
source will be in .tar.gz tarballs (either the
original upstream .orig source, or else a
dfsg containing those
parts which comply with debian's free software
guidelines) accompanied by versioned .diff.gz or
.tar.gz additions. These additions often show how
the package is built, and may contain patches. In
the .diff.gz versions, any patches create files in
debian/patches.
Fedora http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/ - this site is still occasionally overloaded, but it is an easy way of looking at .spec files and patches. If you know their name for the package (e.g. mesa.git) you can append that to the URI to get to it. If not, use the search box. If the site is unavailable, try looking for a local mirror of ftp.fedora.com (the primary site is usually unavailable if fedora cgit is not responding) and download a source rpm to see what they do.
Gentoo - the mirrors for ebuilds and patches seem
to be well-hidden, and they change frequently.
Also, if you have found a mirror, you need to know
which directory the application has been assigned
to. The ebuilds themselves can be found at
http://packages.gentoo.org/
- use the search field. If there are any patches, a
mirror will have them in the files/ directory. Depending on
your browser, or the mirror, you might need to
download the ebuild to be able to read it. Treat
the ebuild as a sort of pseudo-code / shell
combination - look in particular for sed commands and
patches, or hazard a guess at the meanings of the
functions such as dodoc.
openSUSE http://download.opensuse.org/factory/repo/src-oss/suse/src/ - source only seems to be available in source rpms.
Slackware - the official package browser is
currently broken. The site at http://slackbuilds.org/
has current and previous versions in their
unofficial repository with links to homepages,
downloads, and some individual files, particularly
the .SlackBuild
files.
Ubuntu ftp://ftp.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/ - see the debian notes above.
If everything else fails, try the blfs-support mailing-list.
If you have found a package that is only available in
.deb or .rpm format, there are two small scripts,
rpm2targz and
deb2targz that
are available at http://downloads.linuxfromscratch.org/deb2targz.tar.bz2
and http://downloads.linuxfromscratch.org/rpm2targz.tar.bz2
to convert the archives into a simple tar.gz format.
You may also find an rpm2cpio script useful. The Perl version in the linux kernel archives at http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0210.2/att-0093/01-rpm2cpio works for most source rpms. The rpm2targz script will use an rpm2cpio script or binary if one is on your path. Note that rpm2cpio will unpack a source rpm in the current directory, giving a tarball, a spec file, and perhaps patches or other files.
Last updated on 2013-08-26 08:43:33 -0700
The intention of LFS is to provide a basic system which you can build upon. There are several things about tidying up the system which many people wonder about once they have done the base install. We hope to cover these issues in this chapter.
Most people coming from non-Unix like backgrounds to Linux find
the concept of text-only configuration files slightly strange. In
Linux, just about all configuration is done via the manipulation
of text files. The majority of these files can be found in the
/etc hierarchy. There are often
graphical configuration programs available for different
subsystems but most are simply pretty front ends to the process
of editing a text file. The advantage of text-only configuration
is that you can edit parameters using your favorite text editor,
whether that be vim, emacs, or any other editor.
The first task is making a recovery boot device in Creating a Custom Boot Device because it's the most critical need. Hardware issues relevant to firmware and other devices is addressed next. The system is then configured to ease addition of new users, because this can affect the choices you make in the two subsequent topics—The Bash Shell Startup Files and The vimrc Files.
The remaining topics, Customizing your Logon with /etc/issue, Random number generation, Autofs-5.1.1, and Configuring for Network Filesystems are then addressed, in that order. They don't have much interaction with the other topics in this chapter.
This section is really about creating a rescue device. As the name rescue implies, the host system has a problem, often lost partition information or corrupted file systems, that prevents it from booting and/or operating normally. For this reason, you must not depend on resources from the host being "rescued". To presume that any given partition or hard drive will be available is a risky presumption.
In a modern system, there are many devices that can be used as a rescue device: floppy, cdrom, usb drive, or even a network card. Which one you use depends on your hardware and your BIOS. In the past, a rescue device was thought to be a floppy disk. Today, many systems do not even have a floppy drive.
Building a complete rescue device is a challenging task. In many ways, it is equivalent to building an entire LFS system. In addition, it would be a repetition of information already available. For these reasons, the procedures for a rescue device image are not presented here.
The software of today's systems has grown large. Linux 2.6 no longer supports booting directly from a floppy. In spite of this, there are solutions available using older versions of Linux. One of the best is Tom's Root/Boot Disk available at http://www.toms.net/rb/. This will provide a minimal Linux system on a single floppy disk and provides the ability to customize the contents of your disk if necessary.
There are several sources that can be used for a rescue CD-ROM. Just about any commercial distribution's installation CD-ROMs or DVDs will work. These include RedHat, Mandrake, and SuSE. One very popular option is Knoppix.
Also, the LFS Community has developed its own LiveCD available at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/livecd/. This LiveCD, is no longer capable of building an entire LFS/BLFS system, but is still a good rescue CD-ROM. If you download the ISO image, use xorriso to copy the image to a CD-ROM.
The instructions for using GRUB2 to make a custom rescue CD-ROM are also available in LFS Chapter 8.
A USB Pen drive, sometimes called a Thumb drive, is recognized by Linux as a SCSI device. Using one of these devices as a rescue device has the advantage that it is usually large enough to hold more than a minimal boot image. You can save critical data to the drive as well as use it to diagnose and recover a damaged system. Booting such a drive requires BIOS support, but building the system consists of formatting the drive, adding GRUB as well as the Linux kernel and supporting files.
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/CreatingaCustomBootDevice
Last updated on 2014-01-19 04:43:46 -0800
On some recent PCs it can be necessary, or desirable, to load
firmware to make them work at their best. The kernel contains a
directory, /lib/firmware, where
the kernel or kernel drivers look for firmware images.
Preparing firmware for multiple different machines, as a distro would do, is outside the scope of this book.
Currently, most firmware can be found at a git repository:
http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/.
For convenience, the LFS Project has created a mirror, updated
daily, where these firmware files can be accessed via
wget or a web
browser at http://anduin.linuxfromscratch.org/sources/linux-firmware/.
To get the firmware, either point a browser to one of the above
repositories and then download the item(s) which you need, or
install git and
clone that repository.
For some other firmware, particularly for Intel microcode and certain wifi devices, the needed firmware is not available in the above repository. Some of this will be addressed below, but a search of the Internet for needed firmware is sometimes necessary.
Firmware files are conventionally referred to as blobs because you cannot determine what they will do. Note that firmware is distributed under various different licenses which do not permit disassembly or reverse-engineering.
Firmware for PCs falls into four categories:
Updates to the CPU to work around errata, usually referred to as microcode.
Firmware for video controllers. On x86 machines this seems to only apply to ATI devices : Radeons require firmware to be able to use KMS (kernel modesetting - the preferred option) as well as for Xorg. For earlier radeon chips (before the R600), the firmware is still in the kernel.
Firmware updates for wired network ports. Mostly they work even without the updates, but one must assume that they will work better with the updated firmware.
Firmware for other devices, such as wifi. These devices are not required for the PC to boot, but need the firmware before these devices can be used.
Although not needed to load a firmware blob, the following tools may be useful for determining, obtaining, or preparing the needed firmware in order to load it into the system: cpio-2.11, git-2.5.0, pciutils-3.4.0, and Wget-1.16.3
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/aboutfirmware
In general, microcode can be loaded by the BIOS or UEFI, and it might be updated by upgrading to a newer version of those. On linux, you can also load the microcode from the kernel if you are using an AMD family 10h or later processor (first introduced late 2007), or an intel processor from 1998 and later (Pentium4, Core, etc), if updated microcode has been released. These updates only last until the machine is powered off, so they need to be applied on every boot.
There are two ways of loading the microcode, described as 'early' and 'late'. Early loading happens before userspace has been started, late loading happens when userspace has started. Not surprisingly, early loading is preferred, (see e.g. an explanatory comment in a kernel commit noted at x86/microcode: Early load microcode on LWN.) Indeed, it is needed to work around one particular erratum in early intel Haswell processors which had TSX enabled. (See Intel Disables TSX Instructions: Erratum Found in Haswell, Haswell-E/EP, Broadwell-Y.) Without this update glibc can do the wrong thing in uncommon situations.
It is much simpler to begin by building a kernel which boots on your hardware, try late microcode loading to see if there is an update (in many cases the BIOS or UEFI will have already applied any update), and then take the extra steps required for early loading.
This means you will be reconfiguring your kernel if you use early loading, so keep the built source around to minimise what gets rebuilt, and if you are at all uncertain, add your own identifier (A,B, etc) to the end of the EXTRAVERSION in the kernel configuration, e.g. "EXTRAVERSION -A" if nothing was set.
To confirm what processor(s) you have (if more than one, they will be identical) look in /proc/cpuinfo.
http://fedorahosted.org/released/microcode_ctl/
For intel CPUs an extra package, microcode_ctl, is required. The package chosen is the version hosted at fedora — there is an alternative version at github from the same packager, but that still includes a redundant old version of an AMD microcode container, and also requires the unzip package.
Download the latest version from the link above; when last checked, this was 2.1-7 and is updated when intel releases new microcode.
This package reformats the microcode supplied by intel into
a format which the kernel can apply. The program
intel-microcode2ucode is
built and invoked by the Makefile to create the individual
firmware blobs, so there is no reason to install it.
Begin by extracting the tarball and changing to the directory it created. Then change to the source diirectory and run:
make
This creates various blobs with names in the form XX-YY-ZZ. Now you need to determine your processor's identity, to see if there is any microcode for it. Determine the decimal values of the cpu family, model and stepping by running:
head -n7 /proc/cpuinfo
Now convert the cpu family, model and stepping to pairs of hexadecimal digits. For a SandyBridge i3-2120 (described as Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2120 CPU) the relevant values are cpu family 6, model 42, stepping 7 so in this case the required identification is 06-2a-07. A look at the blobs will show that there is one for this CPU (although it might have already been applied by the BIOS). If there is a blob for your system then test if it will be applied by copying it (replace <XX-YY-ZZ> by the identifier for your machine) to where the kernel can find it:
mkdir -pv /lib/firmware/intel-ucode cp -v <XX-YY-ZZ> /lib/firmware/intel-ucode
Now that the intel microcode has been prepared, use the following options when you configure the kernel to try late loading of the intel microcode:
Processor type and features --->
<M> CPU microcode loading support [CONFIG_MICROCODE]
[*] Intel microcode loading support [CONFIG_MICROCODE_INTEL]
After you have successfully booted the new system, use the
command dmesg | grep
microcode and study the results to see if
the message new patch_level appears. This example from the
SandyBridge i3:
[ 0.059906] perf_event_intel: PEBS disabled due to CPU errata, please upgrade microcode
[ 2.603083] microcode: CPU0 sig=0x206a7, pf=0x2, revision=0x23
[ 2.669378] microcode: CPU0 sig=0x206a7, pf=0x2, revision=0x23
[ 2.669994] microcode: CPU0 updated to revision 0x29, date = 2013-06-12
[ 2.670069] microcode: CPU1 sig=0x206a7, pf=0x2, revision=0x23
[ 2.670139] microcode: CPU1 sig=0x206a7, pf=0x2, revision=0x23
[ 2.670501] microcode: CPU1 updated to revision 0x29, date = 2013-06-12
[ 2.670509] microcode: CPU2 sig=0x206a7, pf=0x2, revision=0x23
[ 2.670540] microcode: CPU2 sig=0x206a7, pf=0x2, revision=0x23
[ 2.670917] microcode: CPU2 updated to revision 0x29, date = 2013-06-12
[ 2.670955] microcode: CPU3 sig=0x206a7, pf=0x2, revision=0x23
[ 2.670988] microcode: CPU3 sig=0x206a7, pf=0x2, revision=0x23
[ 2.671348] microcode: CPU3 updated to revision 0x29, date = 2013-06-12
[ 2.671356] perf_event_intel: PEBS enabled due to microcode update
[ 2.671412] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.00 <tigran@aivazian.fsnet.co.uk>, Peter Oruba
If the microcode was not updated, there is no new microcode for this system's processor. If it did get updated, you can now proceed to the section called “Early loading of microcode”.
Begin by downloading a container of firmware for your CPU
family from
http://anduin.linuxfromscratch.org/sources/linux-firmware/amd-ucode/.
The family is always specified in hex. Families 10h to 14h
(16 to 20) are in microcode_amd.bin. Families 15h and 16h
have their own containers. Create the required directory
and put the firmware you downloaded into it as the
root user:
mkdir -pv /lib/firmware/amd-ucode cp -v microcode_amd* /lib/firmware/amd-ucode
When you configure the kernel, use the following options to try late loading of AMD microcode:
Processor type and features --->
<M> CPU microcode loading support [CONFIG_MICROCODE]
[*] AMD microcode loading support [CONFIG_MICROCODE_AMD]
After you have successfully booted the new system, use the
command dmesg | grep
microcode and study the results to see if
the message new patch_level appears, as in this example
from an old Athlon(tm) II X2:
[ 4.183907] microcode: CPU0: patch_level=0x010000b6
[ 4.184271] microcode: CPU0: new patch_level=0x010000c8
[ 4.184278] microcode: CPU1: patch_level=0x010000b6
[ 4.184283] microcode: CPU1: new patch_level=0x010000c8
[ 4.184359] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.00 <tigran@aivazian.fsnet.co.uk>, Peter Oruba
If the microcode was not updated, there is no new microcode for this system's processor. If it did get updated, you can now proceed to the section called “Early loading of microcode”.
If you have established that updated microcode is available for your system, it is time to prepare it for early loading. This requires an additional package, cpio-2.11, as well as changes to the kernel config and the creation of an initrd which will need to be added to grub.cfg.
It does not matter where you prepare the initrd, and once it is working you can apply the same initrd to later LFS systems or newer kernels on this same machine, at least until any newer microcode is released. Use the following commands:
mkdir -p initrd/kernel/x86/microcode cd initrd
For an AMD machine, use the following command (replace <MYCONTAINER> with the name of the container for your CPU's family):
cp -v /lib/firmware/amd_ucode/<MYCONTAINER> kernel/x86/microcode/AuthenticAMD.bin
Or for an Intel machine copy the appropriate blob using this command:
cp -v /lib/firmware/intel-ucode/<XX-YY-ZZ> kernel/x86/microcode/GenuineIntel.bin
Now prepare the initrd:
find . | cpio -o -H newc > /boot/microcode.img
You will now need to reconfigure and rebuild your kernel. It is safer to either add/change the EXTRAVERSION in the kernel's configuration and install the newer kernel with a new name, or else (unless you have a machine which requires an early firmware update) wait for the next SUBLEVEL kernel release so that you can fall back to the existing kernel in the event that something goes wrong.
You will also need to add a new entry to /boot/grub/grub.cfg and here you should add a new line after the linux line within the stanza. If /boot is a separate mountpoint:
initrd /microcode.img
or this if it is not:
initrd /boot/microcode.img
You must also change the kernel config:
General Setup --->
[y] Initial RAM filesystem and RAM disk (initramfs/initrd) support [CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD]
[y] CPU microcode loading support [CONFIG_MICROCODE]
Retain the setting for INTEL or AMD microcode. When you have saved the .config file, either CONFIG_MICROCODE_INTEL_EARLY=y or CONFIG_MICROCODE_AMD_EARLY=y should be set, together with CONFIG_MICROCODE_EARLY=y.
When you have installed and booted this kernel, you should check the output of dmesg to confirm that the early load worked. The places and times where this happens are very different in AMD and Intel machines. First, an Intel example where a development kernel is being tested, showing that the first notification comes before the kernel version is mentioned:
[ 0.000000] CPU0 microcode updated early to revision 0x29, date = 2013-06-12
[ 0.000000] Linux version 4.0.0-rc6 (ken@jtm1) (gcc version 4.9.2 (GCC) )
#3 SMP PREEMPT Mon Mar 30 21:26:02 BST 2015
[ 0.000000] Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-4.0.0-rc6-sda13 root=/dev/sda13 ro
...
[ 0.103091] CPU1 microcode updated early to revision 0x29, date = 2013-06-12
[ 0.113241] #2
[ 0.134631] #3
[ 0.147821] x86: Booted up 1 node, 4 CPUs
[ 0.147936] smpboot: Total of 4 processors activated (26338.66 BogoMIPS)
...
[ 0.272643] microcode: CPU0 sig=0x206a7, pf=0x2, revision=0x29
[ 0.272709] microcode: CPU1 sig=0x206a7, pf=0x2, revision=0x29
[ 0.272775] microcode: CPU2 sig=0x206a7, pf=0x2, revision=0x29
[ 0.272842] microcode: CPU3 sig=0x206a7, pf=0x2, revision=0x29
[ 0.272941] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.00 <tigran@aivazian.fsnet.co.uk>, Peter Oruba
A second AMD example is where the machine was running a stable kernel on an older version of LFS. Note that here there is no mention of the previous microcode version — compare this output to the AMD late loading messages (above) from the same machine:
[ 0.000000] Linux version 3.18.11 (ken@milliways) (gcc version 4.9.1 (GCC) )
#4 SMP Thu Apr 9 21:51:05 BST 2015
[ 0.000000] Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.18.11-sda5 root=/dev/sda5 video=800x600 ro
...
[ 0.584009] Trying to unpack rootfs image as initramfs...
[ 0.584092] microcode: updated early to new patch_level=0x010000c8
...
[ 0.586733] microcode: CPU0: patch_level=0x010000c8
[ 0.586778] microcode: CPU1: patch_level=0x010000c8
[ 0.586866] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.00 <tigran@aivazian.fsnet.co.uk>, Peter Oruba
These instructions do NOT apply to old radeons before the
R600 family. For those, the firmware is in the kernel's
/lib/firmware/ directory. Nor
do they apply if you intend to avoid a graphical setup such
as Xorg and are content to use the default 80x25 display
rather than a framebuffer.
Early radeon devices only needed a single 2K blob of firmware. Recent devices need several different blobs, and some of them are much bigger. The total size of the radeon firmware directory is over 500K — on a large modern system you can probably spare the space, but it is still redundant to install all the unused files each time you build a system.
A better approach is to install pciutils-3.4.0 and
then use lspci to identify which VGA
controller is installed.
With that information, check the RadeonFeature page of the Xorg wiki for Decoder ring for engineering vs marketing names to identify the family (you may need to know this for the Xorg driver in BLFS — Southern Islands and Sea Islands use the radeonsi driver) and the specific model.
Now that you know which controller you are using, consult the Radeon page of the Gentoo wiki which has a table listing the required firmware blobs for the various chipsets. Note that Southern Islands and Sea Islands chips use different firmware for kernel 3.17 and later compared to earlier kernels. Identify and download the required blobs then install them:
mkdir -pv /lib/firmware/radeon cp -v <YOUR_BLOBS> /lib/firmware/radeon
There are actually two ways of installing this firmware. BLFS, in the 'Kernel Configuration for additional firmware' section part of the Xorg ATI Driver-7.5.0 section gives an example of compiling the firmware into the kernel - that is slightly faster to load, but uses more kernel memory. Here we will use the alternative method of making the radeon driver a module. In your kernel config set the following:
Device Drivers --->
Graphics support --->
Direct Rendering Manager --->
<*> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 ... support) [CONFIG_DRM]
<m> ATI Radeon [CONFIG_DRM_RADEON]
Loading several large blobs from /lib/firmware takes a noticeable time, during which the screen will be blank. If you do not enable the penguin framebuffer logo, or change the console size by using a bigger font, that probably does not matter. If desired, you can slightly reduce the time if you follow the alternate method of specifying 'y' for CONFIG_DRM_RADEON covered in BLFS at the link above — you must specify each needed radeon blob if you do that.
The kernel likes to load firmware for some network drivers, particularly those from Realtek (the /lib/linux-firmware/rtl_nic/) directory, but they generally appear to work without it. Therefore, you can boot the kernel, check dmesg for messages about this missing firmware, and if necessary download the firmware and put it in the specified directory in /lib/firmware so that it will be found on subsequent boots. Note that with current kernels this works whether or not the driver is compiled in or built as a module, there is no need to build this firmware into the kernel. Here is an example where the R8169 driver has been compiled in but the firmware was not made available. Once the firmware had been provided, there was no mention of it on later boots.
dmesg | grep firmware | grep r8169
[ 7.018028] r8169 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for rtl_nic/rtl8168g-2.fw failed with error -2
[ 7.018036] r8169 0000:01:00.0 eth0: unable to load firmware patch rtl_nic/rtl8168g-2.fw (-2)
Identifying the correct firmware will typically require you
to install pciutils-3.4.0, and then use
lspci to
identify the device. You should then search online to check
which module it uses, which firmware, and where to obtain the
firmware — not all of it is in linux-firmware.
If possible, you should begin by using a wired connection when you first boot your LFS system. To use a wireless connection you will need to use a network tools such as Wireless Tools-29 and wpa_supplicant-2.5.
Firmware may also be needed for other devices such as some SCSI controllers, bluetooth adaptors, or TV recorders. The same principles apply.
Last updated on 2015-09-20 15:38:20 -0700
Although most devices needed by packages in BLFS and beyond are
set up properly by udev using
the default rules installed by LFS in /etc/udev/rules.d, there are cases where the
rules must be modified or augmented.
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/aboutdevices
If there are multiple sound cards in a system, the "default"
sound card becomes random. The method to establish sound card
order depends on whether the drivers are modules or not. If
the sound card drivers are compiled into the kernel, control
is via kernel command line parameters in /boot/grub/grub.cfg. For example, if a
system has both an FM801 card and a SoundBlaster PCI card,
the following can be appended to the command line:
snd-fm801.index=0 snd-ens1371.index=1
If the sound card drivers are built as modules, the order can
be established in the /etc/modprobe.conf file with:
options snd-fm801 index=0
options snd-ens1371 index=1
USB devices usually have two kinds of device nodes associated with them.
The first kind is created by device-specific drivers (e.g., usb_storage/sd_mod or usblp) in the kernel. For example, a USB mass storage device would be /dev/sdb, and a USB printer would be /dev/usb/lp0. These device nodes exist only when the device-specific driver is loaded.
The second kind of device nodes (/dev/bus/usb/BBB/DDD, where BBB is the bus number and DDD is the device number) are created even if the device doesn't have a kernel driver. By using these "raw" USB device nodes, an application can exchange arbitrary USB packets with the device, i.e., bypass the possibly-existing kernel driver.
Access to raw USB device nodes is needed when a userspace program is acting as a device driver. However, for the program to open the device successfully, the permissions have to be set correctly. By default, due to security concerns, all raw USB devices are owned by user root and group usb, and have 0664 permissions (the read access is needed, e.g., for lsusb to work and for programs to access USB hubs). Packages (such as SANE and libgphoto2) containing userspace USB device drivers also ship udev rules that change the permissions of the controlled raw USB devices. That is, rules installed by SANE change permissions for known scanners, but not printers. If a package maintainer forgot to write a rule for your device, report a bug to both BLFS (if the package is there) and upstream, and you will need to write your own rule.
There is one situation when such fine-grained access control with pre-generated udev rules doesn't work. Namely, PC emulators such as KVM, QEMU and VirtualBox use raw USB device nodes to present arbitrary USB devices to the guest operating system (note: patches are needed in order to get this to work without the obsolete /proc/bus/usb mount point described below). Obviously, maintainers of these packages cannot know which USB devices are going to be connected to the guest operating system. You can either write separate udev rules for all needed USB devices yourself, or use the default catch-all "usb" group, members of which can send arbitrary commands to all USB devices.
Before Linux-2.6.15, raw USB device access was performed not with /dev/bus/usb/BBB/DDD device nodes, but with /proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD pseudofiles. Some applications (e.g., VMware Workstation) still use only this deprecated technique and can't use the new device nodes. For them to work, use the "usb" group, but remember that members will have unrestricted access to all USB devices. To create the fstab entry for the obsolete usbfs filesystem:
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=14,devmode=0660 0 0
Adding users to the "usb" group is inherently insecure, as they can bypass access restrictions imposed through the driver-specific USB device nodes. For instance, they can read sensitive data from USB hard drives without being in the "disk" group. Avoid adding users to this group, if you can.
Fine-tuning of device attributes such as group name and
permissions is possible by creating extra udev rules, matching on something like
this. The vendor and product can be found by searching the
/sys/devices directory entries
or using udevadm
info after the device has been attached. See
the documentation in the current udev directory of /usr/share/doc for details.
SUBSYSTEM=="usb_device", SYSFS{idVendor}=="05d8", SYSFS{idProduct}=="4002", \
GROUP:="scanner", MODE:="0660"
The above line is used for descriptive purposes only. The scanner udev rules are put into place when installing SANE-1.0.24.
In some cases, it makes sense to disable udev completely and create static devices. Servers are one example of this situation. Does a server need the capability of handling dynamic devices? Only the system administrator can answer that question, but in many cases the answer will be no.
If dynamic devices are not desired, then static devices must
be created on the system. In the default configuration, the
/etc/rc.d/rcS.d/S10udev boot
script mounts a tmpfs
partition over the /dev
directory. This problem can be overcome by mounting the root
partition temporarily:
If the instructions below are not followed carefully, your system could become unbootable.
mount --bind / /mnt
cp -a /dev/* /mnt/dev
rm /etc/rc.d/rcS.d/{S10udev,S50udev_retry}
umount /mnt
At this point, the system will use static devices upon the next reboot. Create any desired additional devices using mknod.
If you want to restore the dynamic devices, recreate the
/etc/rc.d/rcS.d/{S10udev,S50udev_retry}
symbolic links and reboot again. Static devices do not need
to be removed (console and null are always needed) because
they are covered by the tmpfs
partition. Disk usage for devices is negligible (about
20–30 bytes per entry.)
Last updated on 2012-03-13 11:19:34 -0700
Together, the /usr/sbin/useradd command and
/etc/skel directory (both are
easy to set up and use) provide a way to assure new users are
added to your LFS system with the same beginning settings for
things such as the PATH, keyboard
processing and other environmental variables. Using these two
facilities makes it easier to assure this initial state for
each new user added to the system.
The /etc/skel directory holds
copies of various initialization and other files that may be
copied to the new user's home directory when the /usr/sbin/useradd program
adds the new user.
The useradd
program uses a collection of default values kept in
/etc/default/useradd. This file
is created in a base LFS installation by the Shadow package. If it has been removed or
renamed, the useradd program uses some
internal defaults. You can see the default values by running
/usr/sbin/useradd
-D.
To change these values, simply modify the /etc/default/useradd file as the root user. An alternative to directly
modifying the file is to run useradd as the root user while supplying the desired
modifications on the command line. Information on how to do
this can be found in the useradd man page.
To get started, create an /etc/skel directory and make sure it is
writable only by the system administrator, usually root. Creating the directory as
root is the best way to go.
The mode of any files from this part of the book that you put
in /etc/skel should be writable
only by the owner. Also, since there is no telling what kind of
sensitive information a user may eventually place in their copy
of these files, you should make them unreadable by "group" and
"other".
You can also put other files in /etc/skel and different permissions may be
needed for them.
Decide which initialization files should be provided in every
(or most) new user's home directory. The decisions you make
will affect what you do in the next two sections, The Bash Shell Startup Files
and The vimrc Files. Some
or all of those files will be useful for root, any already-existing users, and new
users.
The files from those sections that you might want to place in
/etc/skel include .inputrc, .bash_profile, .bashrc, .bash_logout, .dircolors, and .vimrc. If you are unsure which of these
should be placed there, just continue to the following
sections, read each section and any references provided, and
then make your decision.
You will run a slightly modified set of commands for files
which are placed in /etc/skel.
Each section will remind you of this. In brief, the book's
commands have been written for files not added to /etc/skel and instead just sends the results
to the user's home directory. If the file is going to be in
/etc/skel, change the book's
command(s) to send output there instead and then just copy the
file from /etc/skel to the
appropriate directories, like /etc, ~ or the
home directory of any other user already in the system.
When adding a new user with useradd, use the -m parameter, which tells useradd to create the user's
home directory and copy files from /etc/skel (can be overridden) to the new
user's home directory. For example (perform as the root user):
useradd -m <newuser>
Last updated on 2007-10-16 06:49:09 -0700
Throughout BLFS, many packages install programs that run as
daemons or in some way should have a user or group name
assigned. Generally these names are used to map a user ID (uid)
or group ID (gid) for system use. Generally the specific uid or
gid numbers used by these applications are not significant. The
exception of course, is that root has a uid and gid of 0 (zero) that is
indeed special. The uid values are stored in /etc/passwd and the gid values are found in
/etc/group.
Customarily, Unix systems classify users and groups into two
categories: system users and regular users. The system users
and groups are given low numbers and regular users and groups
have numeric values greater than all the system values. The
cutoff for these numbers is found in two parameters in the
/etc/login.defs configuration
file. The default UID_MIN value is 1000 and the default GID_MIN
value is 1000. If a specific uid or gid value is not specified
when creating a user with useradd or a group with
groupadd the
values assigned will always be above these cutoff values.
Additionally, the Linux Standard Base recommends that system uid and gid values should be below 100.
Below is a table of suggested uid/gid values used in BLFS beyond those defined in a base LFS installation. These can be changed as desired, but provide a suggested set of consistent values.
Table 3.1. UID/GID Suggested Values
| Name | uid | gid |
|---|---|---|
| bin | 1 | |
| lp | 9 | |
| adm | 16 | |
| atd | 17 | 17 |
| messagebus | 18 | 18 |
| lpadmin | 19 | |
| named | 20 | 20 |
| gdm | 21 | 21 |
| fcron | 22 | 22 |
| systemd-journal | 23 | |
| apache | 25 | 25 |
| smmsp | 26 | 26 |
| polkitd | 27 | 27 |
| rpc | 28 | 28 |
| exim | 31 | 31 |
| postfix | 32 | 32 |
| postdrop | 33 | |
| sendmail | 34 | |
| 34 | ||
| vmailman | 35 | 35 |
| news | 36 | 36 |
| kdm | 37 | 37 |
| mysql | 40 | 40 |
| postgres | 41 | 41 |
| dovecot | 42 | 42 |
| dovenull | 43 | 43 |
| ftp | 45 | 45 |
| proftpd | 46 | 46 |
| vsftpd | 47 | 47 |
| rsyncd | 48 | 48 |
| sshd | 50 | 50 |
| stunnel | 51 | 51 |
| svn | 56 | 56 |
| svntest | 57 | |
| games | 60 | 60 |
| kvm | 61 | |
| wireshark | 62 | |
| lightdm | 63 | 63 |
| sddm | 64 | 64 |
| scanner | 70 | |
| colord | 71 | 71 |
| systemd-bus-proxy | 72 | 72 |
| systemd-journal-gateway | 73 | 73 |
| systemd-journal-remote | 74 | 74 |
| systemd-journal-upload | 75 | 75 |
| systemd-network | 76 | 76 |
| systemd-resolve | 77 | 77 |
| systemd-timesync | 78 | 78 |
| ldap | 83 | 83 |
| avahi | 84 | 84 |
| avahi-autoipd | 85 | 85 |
| netdev | 86 | |
| ntp | 87 | 87 |
| unbound | 88 | 88 |
| plugdev | 90 | |
| anonymous | 98 | |
| nobody | 99 | |
| nogroup | 99 |
One value that is missing is 65534. This value is customarily
assigned to the user nobody and
group nogroup and is
unnecessary.
Last updated on 2015-02-10 06:47:02 -0800
The shell program /bin/bash
(hereafter referred to as just "the shell") uses a collection
of startup files to help create an environment. Each file has a
specific use and may affect login and interactive environments
differently. The files in the /etc directory generally provide global
settings. If an equivalent file exists in your home directory
it may override the global settings.
An interactive login shell is started after a successful login,
using /bin/login, by reading the
/etc/passwd file. This shell
invocation normally reads /etc/profile and its private equivalent
~/.bash_profile upon startup.
An interactive non-login shell is normally started at the
command-line using a shell program (e.g., [prompt]$/bin/bash) or by the
/bin/su command.
An interactive non-login shell is also started with a terminal
program such as xterm or konsole from within a
graphical environment. This type of shell invocation normally
copies the parent environment and then reads the user's
~/.bashrc file for additional
startup configuration instructions.
A non-interactive shell is usually present when a shell script is running. It is non-interactive because it is processing a script and not waiting for user input between commands. For these shell invocations, only the environment inherited from the parent shell is used.
The file ~/.bash_logout is not
used for an invocation of the shell. It is read and executed
when a user exits from an interactive login shell.
Many distributions use /etc/bashrc for system wide initialization of
non-login shells. This file is usually called from the user's
~/.bashrc file and is not built
directly into bash itself. This convention
is followed in this section.
For more information see info bash -- Nodes: Bash Startup Files and Interactive Shells.
Most of the instructions below are used to create files
located in the /etc directory
structure which requires you to execute the commands as the
root user. If you elect to
create the files in user's home directories instead, you
should run the commands as an unprivileged user.
Here is a base /etc/profile.
This file starts by setting up some helper functions and some
basic parameters. It specifies some bash history parameters
and, for security purposes, disables keeping a permanent
history file for the root
user. It also sets a default user prompt. It then calls
small, single purpose scripts in the /etc/profile.d directory to provide most of
the initialization.
For more information on the escape sequences you can use for
your prompt (i.e., the PS1
environment variable) see info
bash -- Node:
Printing a Prompt.
cat > /etc/profile << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/profile
# Written for Beyond Linux From Scratch
# by James Robertson <jameswrobertson@earthlink.net>
# modifications by Dagmar d'Surreal <rivyqntzne@pbzpnfg.arg>
# System wide environment variables and startup programs.
# System wide aliases and functions should go in /etc/bashrc. Personal
# environment variables and startup programs should go into
# ~/.bash_profile. Personal aliases and functions should go into
# ~/.bashrc.
# Functions to help us manage paths. Second argument is the name of the
# path variable to be modified (default: PATH)
pathremove () {
local IFS=':'
local NEWPATH
local DIR
local PATHVARIABLE=${2:-PATH}
for DIR in ${!PATHVARIABLE} ; do
if [ "$DIR" != "$1" ] ; then
NEWPATH=${NEWPATH:+$NEWPATH:}$DIR
fi
done
export $PATHVARIABLE="$NEWPATH"
}
pathprepend () {
pathremove $1 $2
local PATHVARIABLE=${2:-PATH}
export $PATHVARIABLE="$1${!PATHVARIABLE:+:${!PATHVARIABLE}}"
}
pathappend () {
pathremove $1 $2
local PATHVARIABLE=${2:-PATH}
export $PATHVARIABLE="${!PATHVARIABLE:+${!PATHVARIABLE}:}$1"
}
export -f pathremove pathprepend pathappend
# Set the initial path
export PATH=/bin:/usr/bin
if [ $EUID -eq 0 ] ; then
pathappend /sbin:/usr/sbin
unset HISTFILE
fi
# Setup some environment variables.
export HISTSIZE=1000
export HISTIGNORE="&:[bf]g:exit"
# Set some defaults for graphical systems
export XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/share/
export XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/etc/xdg/
# Setup a red prompt for root and a green one for users.
NORMAL="\[\e[0m\]"
RED="\[\e[1;31m\]"
GREEN="\[\e[1;32m\]"
if [[ $EUID == 0 ]] ; then
PS1="$RED\u [ $NORMAL\w$RED ]# $NORMAL"
else
PS1="$GREEN\u [ $NORMAL\w$GREEN ]\$ $NORMAL"
fi
for script in /etc/profile.d/*.sh ; do
if [ -r $script ] ; then
. $script
fi
done
unset script RED GREEN NORMAL
# End /etc/profile
EOF
Now create the /etc/profile.d
directory, where the individual initialization scripts are
placed:
install --directory --mode=0755 --owner=root --group=root /etc/profile.d
This script uses the ~/.dircolors and /etc/dircolors files to control the
colors of file names in a directory listing. They control
colorized output of things like ls --color. The
explanation of how to initialize these files is at the end
of this section.
cat > /etc/profile.d/dircolors.sh << "EOF"
# Setup for /bin/ls and /bin/grep to support color, the alias is in /etc/bashrc.
if [ -f "/etc/dircolors" ] ; then
eval $(dircolors -b /etc/dircolors)
fi
if [ -f "$HOME/.dircolors" ] ; then
eval $(dircolors -b $HOME/.dircolors)
fi
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
alias grep='grep --color=auto'
EOF
This script adds some useful paths to the PATH and can be used to customize other PATH
related environment variables (e.g. LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc)
that may be needed for all users.
cat > /etc/profile.d/extrapaths.sh << "EOF"
if [ -d /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig ] ; then
pathappend /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig PKG_CONFIG_PATH
fi
if [ -d /usr/local/bin ]; then
pathprepend /usr/local/bin
fi
if [ -d /usr/local/sbin -a $EUID -eq 0 ]; then
pathprepend /usr/local/sbin
fi
# Set some defaults before other applications add to these paths.
pathappend /usr/share/man MANPATH
pathappend /usr/share/info INFOPATH
EOF
This script sets up the default inputrc configuration file. If the user
does not have individual settings, it uses the global file.
cat > /etc/profile.d/readline.sh << "EOF"
# Setup the INPUTRC environment variable.
if [ -z "$INPUTRC" -a ! -f "$HOME/.inputrc" ] ; then
INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc
fi
export INPUTRC
EOF
Setting the umask value is important for security. Here the default group write permissions are turned off for system users and when the user name and group name are not the same.
cat > /etc/profile.d/umask.sh << "EOF"
# By default, the umask should be set.
if [ "$(id -gn)" = "$(id -un)" -a $EUID -gt 99 ] ; then
umask 002
else
umask 022
fi
EOF
This script sets an environment variable necessary for native language support. A full discussion on determining this variable can be found on the LFS Bash Shell Startup Files page.
cat > /etc/profile.d/i18n.sh << "EOF"
# Set up i18n variables
export LANG=<ll>_<CC>.<charmap><@modifiers>
EOF
Here is a base /etc/bashrc.
Comments in the file should explain everything you need.
cat > /etc/bashrc << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/bashrc
# Written for Beyond Linux From Scratch
# by James Robertson <jameswrobertson@earthlink.net>
# updated by Bruce Dubbs <bdubbs@linuxfromscratch.org>
# System wide aliases and functions.
# System wide environment variables and startup programs should go into
# /etc/profile. Personal environment variables and startup programs
# should go into ~/.bash_profile. Personal aliases and functions should
# go into ~/.bashrc
# Provides colored /bin/ls and /bin/grep commands. Used in conjunction
# with code in /etc/profile.
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
alias grep='grep --color=auto'
# Provides prompt for non-login shells, specifically shells started
# in the X environment. [Review the LFS archive thread titled
# PS1 Environment Variable for a great case study behind this script
# addendum.]
NORMAL="\[\e[0m\]"
RED="\[\e[1;31m\]"
GREEN="\[\e[1;32m\]"
if [[ $EUID == 0 ]] ; then
PS1="$RED\u [ $NORMAL\w$RED ]# $NORMAL"
else
PS1="$GREEN\u [ $NORMAL\w$GREEN ]\$ $NORMAL"
fi
unset RED GREEN NORMAL
# End /etc/bashrc
EOF
Here is a base ~/.bash_profile.
If you want each new user to have this file automatically,
just change the output of the command to /etc/skel/.bash_profile and check the
permissions after the command is run. You can then copy
/etc/skel/.bash_profile to the
home directories of already existing users, including
root, and set the owner and
group appropriately.
cat > ~/.bash_profile << "EOF"
# Begin ~/.bash_profile
# Written for Beyond Linux From Scratch
# by James Robertson <jameswrobertson@earthlink.net>
# updated by Bruce Dubbs <bdubbs@linuxfromscratch.org>
# Personal environment variables and startup programs.
# Personal aliases and functions should go in ~/.bashrc. System wide
# environment variables and startup programs are in /etc/profile.
# System wide aliases and functions are in /etc/bashrc.
if [ -f "$HOME/.bashrc" ] ; then
source $HOME/.bashrc
fi
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
pathprepend $HOME/bin
fi
# Having . in the PATH is dangerous
#if [ $EUID -gt 99 ]; then
# pathappend .
#fi
# End ~/.bash_profile
EOF
Here is a base ~/.bashrc. The
comments and instructions for using /etc/skel for .bash_profile above also apply here. Only
the target file names are different.
cat > ~/.bashrc << "EOF"
# Begin ~/.bashrc
# Written for Beyond Linux From Scratch
# by James Robertson <jameswrobertson@earthlink.net>
# Personal aliases and functions.
# Personal environment variables and startup programs should go in
# ~/.bash_profile. System wide environment variables and startup
# programs are in /etc/profile. System wide aliases and functions are
# in /etc/bashrc.
if [ -f "/etc/bashrc" ] ; then
source /etc/bashrc
fi
# End ~/.bashrc
EOF
This is an empty ~/.bash_logout
that can be used as a template. You will notice that the base
~/.bash_logout does not include
a clear
command. This is because the clear is handled in the
/etc/issue file.
cat > ~/.bash_logout << "EOF"
# Begin ~/.bash_logout
# Written for Beyond Linux From Scratch
# by James Robertson <jameswrobertson@earthlink.net>
# Personal items to perform on logout.
# End ~/.bash_logout
EOF
If you want to use the dircolors capability, then run the
following command. The /etc/skel setup steps shown above also can
be used here to provide a ~/.dircolors file when a new user is set
up. As before, just change the output file name on the
following command and assure the permissions, owner, and
group are correct on the files created and/or copied.
dircolors -p > /etc/dircolors
If you wish to customize the colors used for different file
types, you can edit the /etc/dircolors file. The instructions for
setting the colors are embedded in the file.
Finally, Ian Macdonald has written an excellent collection of tips and tricks to enhance your shell environment. You can read it online at http://www.caliban.org/bash/index.shtml.
Last updated on 2015-02-20 04:21:54 -0800
The LFS book installs Vim as its text editor. At this point it should be noted that there are a lot of different editing applications out there including Emacs, nano, Joe and many more. Anyone who has been around the Internet (especially usenet) for a short time will certainly have observed at least one flame war, usually involving Vim and Emacs users!
The LFS book creates a basic vimrc file. In this section you'll find an
attempt to enhance this file. At startup, vim reads the global
configuration file (/etc/vimrc)
as well as a user-specific file (~/.vimrc). Either or both can be tailored to
suit the needs of your particular system.
Here is a slightly expanded .vimrc that you can put in ~/.vimrc to provide user specific effects. Of
course, if you put it into /etc/skel/.vimrc instead, it will be made
available to users you add to the system later. You can also
copy the file from /etc/skel/.vimrc to the home directory of
users already on the system, such as root. Be sure to set permissions, owner,
and group if you do copy anything directly from /etc/skel.
" Begin .vimrc
set columns=80
set wrapmargin=8
set ruler
" End .vimrc
Note that the comment tags are " instead of the more usual # or
//. This is correct, the syntax for vimrc is slightly unusual.
Below you'll find a quick explanation of what each of the options in this example file means here:
set columns=80: This simply
sets the number of columns used on the screen.
set wrapmargin=8: This is the
number of characters from the right window border where
wrapping starts.
set ruler: This makes
vim show
the current row and column at the bottom right of the
screen.
More information on the many vim options can be found by
reading the help inside vim itself. Do this by typing
:help in vim to get the general help,
or by typing :help
usr_toc.txt to view the User Manual Table of Contents.
Last updated on 2007-10-16 06:02:24 -0700
When you first boot up your new LFS system, the logon screen
will be nice and plain (as it should be in a bare-bones
system). Many people however, will want their system to display
some information in the logon message. This can be accomplished
using the file /etc/issue.
The /etc/issue file is a plain
text file which will also accept certain escape sequences (see
below) in order to insert information about the system. There
is also the file issue.net which
can be used when logging on remotely. ssh however, will only use it
if you set the option in the configuration file and will
not interpret the escape
sequences shown below.
One of the most common things which people want to do is clear
the screen at each logon. The easiest way of doing that is to
put a "clear" escape sequence into /etc/issue. A simple way of doing this is to
issue the command clear >
/etc/issue. This will insert the relevant
escape code into the start of the /etc/issue file. Note that if you do this,
when you edit the file, you should leave the characters
(normally '^[[H^[[2J') on the first line alone.
Terminal escape sequences are special codes recognized by the terminal. The ^[ represents an ASCII ESC character. The sequence ESC [ H puts the cursor in the upper left hand corner of the screen and ESC 2 J erases the screen. For more information on terminal escape sequences see http://rtfm.etla.org/xterm/ctlseq.html
The following sequences are recognized by agetty (the program which
usually parses /etc/issue). This
information is from man
agetty where you can find extra information
about the logon process.
The issue file can contain
certain character sequences to display various information. All
issue sequences consist of a
backslash (\) immediately followed by one of the letters
explained below (so \d in
/etc/issue would insert the
current date).
b Insert the baudrate of the current line.
d Insert the current date.
s Insert the system name, the name of the operating system.
l Insert the name of the current tty line.
m Insert the architecture identifier of the machine, e.g., i686.
n Insert the nodename of the machine, also known as the hostname.
o Insert the domainname of the machine.
r Insert the release number of the kernel, e.g., 2.6.11.12.
t Insert the current time.
u Insert the number of current users logged in.
U Insert the string "1 user" or "<n> users" where <n> is the
number of current users logged in.
v Insert the version of the OS, e.g., the build-date etc.
Last updated on 2007-04-04 12:42:53 -0700
The Linux kernel supplies a random number generator which is
accessed through /dev/random and
/dev/urandom. Programs that
utilize the random and urandom devices, such as OpenSSH, will benefit from these
instructions.
When a Linux system starts up without much operator interaction, the entropy pool (data used to compute a random number) may be in a fairly predictable state. This creates the real possibility that the number generated at startup may always be the same. In order to counteract this effect, you should carry the entropy pool information across your shut-downs and start-ups.
Install the /etc/rc.d/init.d/random init script included
with the blfs-bootscripts-20150924 package.
make install-random
Last updated on 2007-04-04 12:42:53 -0700
The lsb_release script gives information about the Linux Standards Base (LSB) status of the distribution.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (HTTP): http://sourceforge.net/projects/lsb/files/lsb_release/1.4/lsb-release-1.4.tar.gz
Download MD5 sum: 30537ef5a01e0ca94b7b8eb6a36bb1e4
Download size: 12 KB
Estimated disk space required: 80 KB
Estimated build time: less than 0.1 SBU
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/lsb_release
First fix a minor display problem:
sed -i "s|n/a|unavailable|" lsb_release
Install lsb_release by running the following commands:
./help2man -N --include ./lsb_release.examples \
--alt_version_key=program_version ./lsb_release > lsb_release.1
Now, as the root user:
install -v -m 644 lsb_release.1 /usr/share/man/man1/lsb_release.1 && install -v -m 755 lsb_release /usr/bin/lsb_release
The configuration for this package was done in
LFS. The file /etc/lsb-release should already exist. Be
sure that the DISTRIB_CODENAME entry has been set properly.
Add the current package version to /etc/lsb-release. As the root user:
echo 'LSB_VERSION="1.4"' >> /etc/lsb-release
Last updated on 2015-09-08 09:43:51 -0700
Security takes many forms in a computing environment. After some initial discussion, this chapter gives examples of three different types of security: access, prevention and detection.
Access for users is usually handled by login or an application designed to handle the login function. In this chapter, we show how to enhance login by setting policies with PAM modules. Access via networks can also be secured by policies set by iptables, commonly referred to as a firewall. The Network Security Services (NSS) and Netscape Portable Runtime (NSPR) libraries can be installed and shared among the many applications requiring them. For applications that don't offer the best security, you can use the Stunnel package to wrap an application daemon inside an SSL tunnel.
Prevention of breaches, like a trojan, are assisted by applications like GnuPG, specifically the ability to confirm signed packages, which recognizes modifications of the tarball after the packager creates it.
Finally, we touch on detection with a package that stores "signatures" of critical files (defined by the administrator) and then regenerates those "signatures" and compares for files that have been changed.
All software has bugs. Sometimes, a bug can be exploited, for example to allow users to gain enhanced privileges (perhaps gaining a root shell, or simply accessing or deleting other user's files), or to allow a remote site to crash an application (denial of service), or for theft of data. These bugs are labelled as vulnerabilities.
The main place where vulnerabilities get logged is cve.mitre.org. Unfortunately, many vulnerability numbers (CVE-yyyy-nnnn) are initially only labelled as "reserved" when distributions start issuing fixes. Also, some vulnerabilities apply to particular combinations of configure options, or only apply to old versions of packages which have long since been updated in BLFS.
BLFS differs from distributions - there is no BLFS security team, and the editors only become aware of vulnerabilities after they are public knowledge. Sometimes, a package with a vulnerability will not be updated in the book for a long time. Issues can be logged in the Trac system, which might speed up resolution.
The normal way for BLFS to fix a vulnerability is, ideally, to update the book to a new fixed release of the package. Sometimes that happens even before the vulnerability is public knowledge, so there is no guarantee that it will be shown as a vulnerability fix in the Changelog. Alternatively, a sed command, or a patch taken from a distribution, may be appropriate.
The bottom line is that you are responsible for your own security, and for assessing the potential impact of any problems.
To keep track of what is being discovered, you may wish to follow the security announcements of one or more distributions. For example, Debian has Debian security. Fedora's links on security are at the Fedora wiki. Details of Gentoo linux security announcements are discussed at Gentoo security. Finally, the Slackware archives of security announcements are at Slackware security.
The most general English source is perhaps the Full Disclosure Mailing List, but please read the comment on that page. If you use other languages you may prefer other sites such as http://www.heise.de/security heise.de (German) or cert.hr (Croatian). These are not linux-specific. There is also a daily update at lwn.net for subscribers (free access to the data after 2 weeks, but their vulnerabilities database at lwn.net/Vulnerabilities is unrestricted).
For some packages, subscribing to their 'announce' lists will provide prompt news of newer versions.
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/vulnerabilities
Last updated on 2015-09-20 15:38:20 -0700
The Public Key Inrastructure is used for many security issues in a Linux system. In order for a certificate to be trusted, it must be signed by a trusted agent called a Certificate Authority (CA). The certificates loaded by this section are from the list on the Mozilla version control system and formats it into a form used by OpenSSL-1.0.2d. The certificates can also be used by other applications either directly of indirectly through openssl.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
CA Certificate Download: http://anduin.linuxfromscratch.org/sources/other/certdata.txt
CA Certificate size: 1.6 MB
Estimated disk space required: 6 MB
Estimated build time: 0.1 SBU
The certfile.txt file above is actually retrieved from https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release/file/default/security/nss/lib/ckfw/builtins/certdata.txt. It is really an HTML file, but the text file can be retrieved indirectly from the HTML file. The Download URL above automates that process and also adds a line where the date can be extracted as a revision number by the scripts below.
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/cacerts
First create a script to reformat a certificate into a form
needed by openssl. As the
root user:
cat > /usr/bin/make-cert.pl << "EOF"
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Used to generate PEM encoded files from Mozilla certdata.txt.
# Run as ./make-cert.pl > certificate.crt
#
# Parts of this script courtesy of RedHat (mkcabundle.pl)
#
# This script modified for use with single file data (tempfile.cer) extracted
# from certdata.txt, taken from the latest version in the Mozilla NSS source.
# mozilla/security/nss/lib/ckfw/builtins/certdata.txt
#
# Authors: DJ Lucas
# Bruce Dubbs
#
# Version 20120211
my $certdata = './tempfile.cer';
open( IN, "cat $certdata|" )
|| die "could not open $certdata";
my $incert = 0;
while ( <IN> )
{
if ( /^CKA_VALUE MULTILINE_OCTAL/ )
{
$incert = 1;
open( OUT, "|openssl x509 -text -inform DER -fingerprint" )
|| die "could not pipe to openssl x509";
}
elsif ( /^END/ && $incert )
{
close( OUT );
$incert = 0;
print "\n\n";
}
elsif ($incert)
{
my @bs = split( /\\/ );
foreach my $b (@bs)
{
chomp $b;
printf( OUT "%c", oct($b) ) unless $b eq '';
}
}
}
EOF
chmod +x /usr/bin/make-cert.pl
The following script creates the certificates and a bundle of
all the certificates. It creates a ./certs directory and ./BLFS-ca-bundle-${VERSION}.crt. Again
create this script as the root user:
cat > /usr/bin/make-ca.sh << "EOF"
#!/bin/sh
# Begin make-ca.sh
# Script to populate OpenSSL's CApath from a bundle of PEM formatted CAs
#
# The file certdata.txt must exist in the local directory
# Version number is obtained from the version of the data.
#
# Authors: DJ Lucas
# Bruce Dubbs
#
# Version 20120211
certdata="certdata.txt"
if [ ! -r $certdata ]; then
echo "$certdata must be in the local directory"
exit 1
fi
REVISION=$(grep CVS_ID $certdata | cut -f4 -d'$')
if [ -z "${REVISION}" ]; then
echo "$certfile has no 'Revision' in CVS_ID"
exit 1
fi
VERSION=$(echo $REVISION | cut -f2 -d" ")
TEMPDIR=$(mktemp -d)
TRUSTATTRIBUTES="CKA_TRUST_SERVER_AUTH"
BUNDLE="BLFS-ca-bundle-${VERSION}.crt"
CONVERTSCRIPT="/usr/bin/make-cert.pl"
SSLDIR="/etc/ssl"
mkdir "${TEMPDIR}/certs"
# Get a list of starting lines for each cert
CERTBEGINLIST=$(grep -n "^# Certificate" "${certdata}" | cut -d ":" -f1)
# Get a list of ending lines for each cert
CERTENDLIST=`grep -n "^CKA_TRUST_STEP_UP_APPROVED" "${certdata}" | cut -d ":" -f 1`
# Start a loop
for certbegin in ${CERTBEGINLIST}; do
for certend in ${CERTENDLIST}; do
if test "${certend}" -gt "${certbegin}"; then
break
fi
done
# Dump to a temp file with the name of the file as the beginning line number
sed -n "${certbegin},${certend}p" "${certdata}" > "${TEMPDIR}/certs/${certbegin}.tmp"
done
unset CERTBEGINLIST CERTDATA CERTENDLIST certbegin certend
mkdir -p certs
rm -f certs/* # Make sure the directory is clean
for tempfile in ${TEMPDIR}/certs/*.tmp; do
# Make sure that the cert is trusted...
grep "CKA_TRUST_SERVER_AUTH" "${tempfile}" | \
egrep "TRUST_UNKNOWN|NOT_TRUSTED" > /dev/null
if test "${?}" = "0"; then
# Throw a meaningful error and remove the file
cp "${tempfile}" tempfile.cer
perl ${CONVERTSCRIPT} > tempfile.crt
keyhash=$(openssl x509 -noout -in tempfile.crt -hash)
echo "Certificate ${keyhash} is not trusted! Removing..."
rm -f tempfile.cer tempfile.crt "${tempfile}"
continue
fi
# If execution made it to here in the loop, the temp cert is trusted
# Find the cert data and generate a cert file for it
cp "${tempfile}" tempfile.cer
perl ${CONVERTSCRIPT} > tempfile.crt
keyhash=$(openssl x509 -noout -in tempfile.crt -hash)
mv tempfile.crt "certs/${keyhash}.pem"
rm -f tempfile.cer "${tempfile}"
echo "Created ${keyhash}.pem"
done
# Remove blacklisted files
# MD5 Collision Proof of Concept CA
if test -f certs/8f111d69.pem; then
echo "Certificate 8f111d69 is not trusted! Removing..."
rm -f certs/8f111d69.pem
fi
# Finally, generate the bundle and clean up.
cat certs/*.pem > ${BUNDLE}
rm -r "${TEMPDIR}"
EOF
chmod +x /usr/bin/make-ca.sh
Add a short script to remove expired certificates from a
directory. Again create this script as the root user:
cat > /usr/sbin/remove-expired-certs.sh << "EOF"
#!/bin/sh
# Begin /usr/sbin/remove-expired-certs.sh
#
# Version 20120211
# Make sure the date is parsed correctly on all systems
mydate()
{
local y=$( echo $1 | cut -d" " -f4 )
local M=$( echo $1 | cut -d" " -f1 )
local d=$( echo $1 | cut -d" " -f2 )
local m
if [ ${d} -lt 10 ]; then d="0${d}"; fi
case $M in
Jan) m="01";;
Feb) m="02";;
Mar) m="03";;
Apr) m="04";;
May) m="05";;
Jun) m="06";;
Jul) m="07";;
Aug) m="08";;
Sep) m="09";;
Oct) m="10";;
Nov) m="11";;
Dec) m="12";;
esac
certdate="${y}${m}${d}"
}
OPENSSL=/usr/bin/openssl
DIR=/etc/ssl/certs
if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
DIR="$1"
fi
certs=$( find ${DIR} -type f -name "*.pem" -o -name "*.crt" )
today=$( date +%Y%m%d )
for cert in $certs; do
notafter=$( $OPENSSL x509 -enddate -in "${cert}" -noout )
date=$( echo ${notafter} | sed 's/^notAfter=//' )
mydate "$date"
if [ ${certdate} -lt ${today} ]; then
echo "${cert} expired on ${certdate}! Removing..."
rm -f "${cert}"
fi
done
EOF
chmod u+x /usr/sbin/remove-expired-certs.sh
The following commands will fetch the certificates and
convert them to the correct format. If desired, a web browser
may be used instead of wget
but the file will need to be saved with the name certdata.txt. These commands can be
repeated as necessary to update the CA Certificates.
URL=http://anduin.linuxfromscratch.org/sources/other/certdata.txt && rm -f certdata.txt && wget $URL && make-ca.sh && unset URL
Now, as the root user:
SSLDIR=/etc/ssl &&
remove-expired-certs.sh certs &&
install -d ${SSLDIR}/certs &&
cp -v certs/*.pem ${SSLDIR}/certs &&
c_rehash &&
install BLFS-ca-bundle*.crt ${SSLDIR}/ca-bundle.crt &&
ln -sfv ../ca-bundle.crt ${SSLDIR}/certs/ca-certificates.crt &&
unset SSLDIR
Finally, clean up the current directory:
rm -r certs BLFS-ca-bundle*
After installing or updating certificates, if OpenJDK is installed, update the certificates for Java using the procedures at JRE Certificate Authorithy Certificates.
|
is a shell script that reformats the |
|
|
is a utility perl script that converts a single binary certificate (.der format) into .pem format. |
|
|
is a utility shell script that removes expired
certificates from a directory. The default
directory is |
Last updated on 2015-09-20 15:38:20 -0700
The ConsoleKit package is a framework for keeping track of the various users, sessions, and seats present on a system. It provides a mechanism for software to react to changes of any of these items or of any of the metadata associated with them.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (HTTP): https://github.com/Consolekit2/ConsoleKit2/releases/download/1.0.0/ConsoleKit2-1.0.0.tar.bz2
Download MD5 sum: a89382ac18c11eda349053ed37114264
Download size: 1.3 MB
Estimated disk space required: 13.2 MB
Estimated build time: 0.2 SBU
dbus-glib-0.104 and Xorg Libraries
Linux-PAM-1.2.1 and Polkit-0.113
If you intend NOT to install polkit, you will need to manually edit the ConsoleKit.conf file to lock down the service. Failure to do so may be a huge SECURITY HOLE.
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/consolekit
Install ConsoleKit by running the following commands:
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
--localstatedir=/var \
--enable-udev-acl \
--enable-pam-module \
--enable-polkit \
--with-xinitrc-dir=/etc/X11/app-defaults/xinitrc.d \
--docdir=/usr/share/doc/ConsoleKit-1.0.0 \
--with-systemdsystemunitdir=no &&
make
This package does not come with a test suite.
Now, as the root user:
make install &&
mv -v /etc/X11/app-defaults/xinitrc.d/90-consolekit{,.sh}
--enable-udev-acl:
This switch enables building of the udev-acl tool, which is
used to allow normal users to access device nodes normally
only accessible to root.
--enable-pam-module:
This switch enables building of the ConsoleKit PAM module which is needed for
ConsoleKit to work correctly
with PAM. Remove if
Linux PAM is NOT installed.
--enable-polkit:
Enable PolicyKit support.
--with-xinitrc-dir=/etc/X11/app-defaults/xinitrc.d:
Fix the location of the 90-consolekit.sh script. Notice that
the script has been renamed after installation, because
xinitrc only sources script names ending with extension
.sh.
--with-systemdsystemunitdir=no:
Disable attempting to build with systemd libraries.
--enable-docbook-docs: Use this
switch if xmlto is installed
and you wish to build the API documentation.
If you use Linux PAM, it
needs to be configured to activate ConsoleKit upon user login. This can
be achieved by editing the /etc/pam.d/system-session file as the
root user:
cat >> /etc/pam.d/system-session << "EOF"
# Begin ConsoleKit addition
session optional pam_loginuid.so
session optional pam_ck_connector.so nox11
# End ConsoleKit addition
EOF
You will also need a helper script that creates a file in
/var/run/console named as the
currently logged in user and that contains the D-Bus address of the session. You can
create the script by running the following commands as the
root user:
cat > /usr/lib/ConsoleKit/run-session.d/pam-foreground-compat.ck << "EOF"
#!/bin/sh
TAGDIR=/var/run/console
[ -n "$CK_SESSION_USER_UID" ] || exit 1
[ "$CK_SESSION_IS_LOCAL" = "true" ] || exit 0
TAGFILE="$TAGDIR/`getent passwd $CK_SESSION_USER_UID | cut -f 1 -d:`"
if [ "$1" = "session_added" ]; then
mkdir -p "$TAGDIR"
echo "$CK_SESSION_ID" >> "$TAGFILE"
fi
if [ "$1" = "session_removed" ] && [ -e "$TAGFILE" ]; then
sed -i "\%^$CK_SESSION_ID\$%d" "$TAGFILE"
[ -s "$TAGFILE" ] || rm -f "$TAGFILE"
fi
EOF
chmod -v 755 /usr/lib/ConsoleKit/run-session.d/pam-foreground-compat.ck
See /usr/share/doc/ConsoleKit/spec/ConsoleKit.html for more configuration.
|
is a utility that provides information from the ConsoleKit database about what users have logged into the system. |
|
|
is a utility for starting a command in its own ConsoleKit session. |
|
|
list sessions with respective properties. Also good for debugging purposes. |
|
|
write system restart to log. |
|
|
write system start to log. |
|
|
write system stop to log. |
|
|
is the ConsoleKit daemon. |
Last updated on 2015-09-25 06:48:24 -0700
The CrackLib package contains a library used to enforce strong passwords by comparing user selected passwords to words in chosen word lists.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (HTTP): https://github.com/cracklib/cracklib/releases/download/cracklib-2.9.6/cracklib-2.9.6.tar.gz
Download MD5 sum: c52f463585d85924b28cdc1e373ae06d
Download size: 628 KB
Estimated disk space required: 3.8 MB
Estimated build time: less than 0.1 SBU
Recommended word list for English-speaking countries (size: 5.3 MB; md5sum: cae1257e3a9f95c917cc9dbbab852316): https://github.com/cracklib/cracklib/releases/download/cracklib-2.9.6/cracklib-words-2.9.6.gz
There are additional word lists available for download, e.g., from http://www.cotse.com/tools/wordlists.htm. CrackLib can utilize as many, or as few word lists you choose to install.
Users tend to base their passwords on regular words of the spoken language, and crackers know that. CrackLib is intended to filter out such bad passwords at the source using a dictionary created from word lists. To accomplish this, the word list(s) for use with CrackLib must be an exhaustive list of words and word-based keystroke combinations likely to be chosen by users of the system as (guessable) passwords.
The default word list recommended above for downloading mostly satisfies this role in English-speaking countries. In other situations, it may be necessary to download (or even create) additional word lists.
Note that word lists suitable for spell-checking are not usable as CrackLib word lists in countries with non-Latin based alphabets, because of “word-based keystroke combinations” that make bad passwords.
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/cracklib
Install CrackLib by running the following commands:
sed -i '/skipping/d' util/packer.c &&
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--disable-static \
--with-default-dict=/lib/cracklib/pw_dict &&
make
Now, as the root user:
make install && mv -v /usr/lib/libcrack.so.* /lib && ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/libcrack.so) /usr/lib/libcrack.so
Issue the following commands as the root user to install the recommended word
list and create the CrackLib
dictionary. Other word lists (text based, one word per line)
can also be used by simply installing them into /usr/share/dict and adding them to the
create-cracklib-dict
command.
install -v -m644 -D ../cracklib-words-2.9.6.gz \
/usr/share/dict/cracklib-words.gz &&
gunzip -v /usr/share/dict/cracklib-words.gz &&
ln -v -sf cracklib-words /usr/share/dict/words &&
echo $(hostname) >> /usr/share/dict/cracklib-extra-words &&
install -v -m755 -d /lib/cracklib &&
create-cracklib-dict /usr/share/dict/cracklib-words \
/usr/share/dict/cracklib-extra-words
If desired, check the proper operation of the library as an unprivileged user by issuing the following command:
make test
If you are installing CrackLib after your LFS system has been completed and you have the Shadow package installed, you must reinstall Shadow-4.2.1 if you wish to provide strong password support on your system. If you are now going to install the Linux-PAM-1.2.1 package, you may disregard this note as Shadow will be reinstalled after the Linux-PAM installation.
sed -i '/skipping/d' util/packer.c: Remove a meaningless warning.
--with-default-dict=/lib/cracklib/pw_dict:
This parameter forces the installation of the CrackLib dictionary to the /lib hierarchy.
--disable-static:
This switch prevents installation of static versions of the
libraries.
mv -v /usr/lib/libcrack.so.2*
/lib and ln -v
-sf ../../lib/libcrack.so.2.8.1 ...: These
two commands move the libcrack.so.2.9.0 library and associated
symlink from /usr/lib to
/lib, then recreates the
/usr/lib/libcrack.so symlink
pointing to the relocated file.
install -v -m644 -D
...: This command creates the /usr/share/dict directory (if it doesn't
already exist) and installs the compressed word list there.
ln -v -s cracklib-words
/usr/share/dict/words: The word list is
linked to /usr/share/dict/words
as historically, words is the
primary word list in the /usr/share/dict directory. Omit this
command if you already have a /usr/share/dict/words file installed on
your system.
echo $(hostname)
>>...: The value of hostname is echoed to a
file called cracklib-extra-words. This extra file is
intended to be a site specific list which includes easy to
guess passwords such as company or department names, user's
names, product names, computer names, domain names, etc.
create-cracklib-dict ...: This command creates the CrackLib dictionary from the word lists. Modify the command to add any additional word lists you have installed.
|
is used to determine if a password is strong. |
|
|
is used to format text files (lowercases all words, removes controle characters and sorts the lists). |
|
|
creates a database with words read from standard input. |
|
|
displays on standard output the database specified. |
|
|
is used to create the CrackLib dictionary from the given word list(s). |
|
|
provides a fast dictionary lookup method for strong password enforcement. |
Last updated on 2015-09-09 10:40:58 -0700
The Cyrus SASL package contains a Simple Authentication and Security Layer, a method for adding authentication support to connection-based protocols. To use SASL, a protocol includes a command for identifying and authenticating a user to a server and for optionally negotiating protection of subsequent protocol interactions. If its use is negotiated, a security layer is inserted between the protocol and the connection.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (FTP): ftp://ftp.cyrusimap.org/cyrus-sasl/cyrus-sasl-2.1.26.tar.gz
Download MD5 sum: a7f4e5e559a0e37b3ffc438c9456e425
Download size: 5.0 MB
Estimated disk space required: 30 MB
Estimated build time: 0.5 SBU
Linux-PAM-1.2.1, MIT Kerberos V5-1.13.2, MariaDB-10.0.21 or MySQL, OpenJDK-1.8.0.60, OpenLDAP-2.4.42, PostgreSQL-9.4.4, SQLite-3.8.11.1, krb4 and Dmalloc
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/cyrus-sasl
Install Cyrus SASL by running the following commands:
patch -Np1 -i ../cyrus-sasl-2.1.26-fixes-3.patch &&
autoreconf -fi &&
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
--enable-auth-sasldb \
--with-dbpath=/var/lib/sasl/sasldb2 \
--with-saslauthd=/var/run/saslauthd &&
make -j1
This package does not come with a test suite. If you are planning on using the GSSAPI authentication mechanism, it is recommended to test it after installing the package using the sample server and client programs which were built in the preceding step. Instructions for performing the tests can be found at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/cyrus-sasl.txt.
Now, as the root user:
make install &&
install -v -dm755 /usr/share/doc/cyrus-sasl-2.1.26 &&
install -v -m644 doc/{*.{html,txt,fig},ONEWS,TODO} \
saslauthd/LDAP_SASLAUTHD /usr/share/doc/cyrus-sasl-2.1.26 &&
install -v -dm700 /var/lib/sasl
--with-dbpath=/var/lib/sasl/sasldb2:
This switch forces the sasldb database to be
created in /var/lib/sasl
instead of /etc.
--with-saslauthd=/var/run/saslauthd:
This switch forces saslauthd to use the FHS
compliant directory /var/run/saslauthd for variable run-time
data.
--enable-auth-sasldb:
This switch enables SASLDB authentication backend.
--with-dblib=gdbm: This switch
forces GDBM to be used
instead of Berkeley DB.
--with-ldap: This switch enables
the OpenLDAP support.
--enable-ldapdb: This switch
enables the LDAPDB authentication backend. There is a
circular dependency with this parameter. See http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/cyrus-sasl
for a solution to this problem.
--enable-java: This switch
enables compiling of the Java support libraries.
--enable-login: This option
enables unsupported LOGIN authentication.
--enable-ntlm: This option
enables unsupported NTLM authentication.
install -v -m644 ...: These commands install documentation which is not installed by the make install command.
install -v -m700 -d /var/lib/sasl: This directory must exist when starting saslauthd or using the sasldb plugin. If you're not going to be running the daemon or using the plugins, you may omit the creation of this directory.
/etc/saslauthd.conf (for
saslauthd
LDAP configuration) and /etc/sasl2/Appname.conf (where "Appname"
is the application defined name of the application)
See file:///usr/share/doc/cyrus-sasl-2.1.26/sysadmin.html for information on what to include in the application configuration files.
See file:///usr/share/doc/cyrus-sasl-2.1.26/LDAP_SASLAUTHD for configuring saslauthd with OpenLDAP.
See file:///usr/share/doc/cyrus-sasl-2.1.26/gssapi.html for configuring saslauthd with Kerberos.
If you need to run the saslauthd daemon at
system startup, install the /etc/rc.d/init.d/saslauthd init script
included in the blfs-bootscripts-20150924 package
using the following command:
make install-saslauthd
You'll need to modify /etc/sysconfig/saslauthd and
replace the AUTHMECH
|
is used to list loadable SASL plugins and their properties. |
|
|
is the SASL authentication server. |
|
|
is used to list the users in the SASL password
database |
|
|
is used to set and delete a user's SASL password
and mechanism specific secrets in the SASL password
database |
|
|
is a test utility for the SASL authentication server. |
|
|
is a general purpose authentication library for server and client applications. |
Last updated on 2015-09-18 14:40:16 -0700
The GnuPG package is GNU's tool for secure communication and data storage. It can be used to encrypt data and to create digital signatures. It includes an advanced key management facility and is compliant with the proposed OpenPGP Internet standard as described in RFC2440 and the S/MIME standard as described by several RFCs. GnuPG 2 is the stable version of GnuPG integrating support for OpenPGP and S/MIME.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (FTP): ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gnupg/gnupg-2.1.7.tar.bz2
Download MD5 sum: ebdf92b15b8bcd8579b643c7f41a3238
Download size: 4.7 MB
Estimated disk space required: 105 MB (including tests)
Estimated build time: 0.7 SBU (including tests)
Libassuan-2.3.0, libgcrypt-1.6.3, Libksba-1.3.3, and NPth-1.2
PIN-Entry-0.9.5 (Run-time requirement for most of the package's functionality)
cURL-7.44.0, libusb-compat-0.1.5, an MTA, OpenLDAP-2.4.42, texlive-20150521 (or install-tl-unx), and GNU adns
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/gnupg2
If you are upgrading from gnupg prior to version 2.1,
upstream developers recommend to backup ~/.gnupg, because some additional
configuration will probably be necessary, and you could
lose your keys. You can find instructions at http://jo-ke.name/wp/?p=111
and
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GnuPG#.22Lost.22_keys.2C_upgrading_to_gnupg_version_2.1.
If the top directory path where the source is unpacked contains symbolic links, the openpgp tests might fail. If this is your case and you wish to run the test suite, fix that with:
sed -e 's|\(GNUPGHOME\)=\$(abs_builddir)|\1=`/bin/pwd`|' \
-i tests/openpgp/Makefile.in
Install GnuPG by running the following commands:
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--enable-symcryptrun \
--docdir=/usr/share/doc/gnupg-2.1.7 &&
make &&
makeinfo --html --no-split \
-o doc/gnupg_nochunks.html doc/gnupg.texi &&
makeinfo --plaintext \
-o doc/gnupg.txt doc/gnupg.texi
If you have texlive-20150521 installed and you wish to create documentation in alternate formats, issue the following commands:
make -C doc pdf ps html
To test the results, issue: make check.
Note that if you have already installed GnuPG, the instructions below will
overwrite /usr/share/man/man1/gpg-zip.1. Now, as the
root user:
make install &&
install -v -m755 -d /usr/share/doc/gnupg-2.1.7/html &&
install -v -m644 doc/gnupg_nochunks.html \
/usr/share/doc/gnupg-2.1.7/html/gnupg.html &&
install -v -m644 doc/*.texi doc/gnupg.txt \
/usr/share/doc/gnupg-2.1.7
We recommend the creation of symlinks for compatibility with
the first version of GnuPG, because some programs or scripts
need them. Issue, as root
user:
for f in gpg gpgv
do
ln -svf ${f}2.1 /usr/share/man/man1/$f.1 &&
ln -svf ${f}2 /usr/bin/$f
done
unset f
If you created alternate formats of the documentation,
install it using the following command as the root user:
install -v -m644 doc/gnupg.html/* \
/usr/share/doc/gnupg-2.1.7/html &&
install -v -m644 doc/gnupg.{pdf,dvi,ps} \
/usr/share/doc/gnupg-2.1.7
--docdir=/usr/share/doc/gnupg-2.1.7:
This switch changes the default docdir to /usr/share/doc/gnupg-2.1.7.
--enable-symcryptrun:
This switch enables building the symcryptrun program.
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is used to create and populate user's |
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is a wrapper script used to run gpgconf with the
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is a tool that takes care of accessing the OpenPGP keyservers. |
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is a tool to contact a running dirmngr and test whether a certificate has been revoked. |
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is a tool to create, mount or unmount an encrypted file system container. |
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is a daemon used to manage secret (private) keys independently from any protocol. It is used as a backend for gpg2 and gpgsm as well as for a couple of other utilities. |
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is a utility used to communicate with a running gpg-agent. |
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(optional) is a symlink to gpg2 for compatibility with the first version of GnuPG. |
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is the OpenPGP part of the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG). It is a tool used to provide digital encryption and signing services using the OpenPGP standard. |
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is a utility used to automatically and reasonably
safely query and modify configuration files in the
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is a utility used to get the correctly formated key for ssh usage. |
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is a utility currently only useful for debugging.
Run it with |
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is a tool similar to gpg2 used to provide digital encryption and signing services on X.509 certificates and the CMS protocol. It is mainly used as a backend for S/MIME mail processing. |
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is a tool to encrypt or sign files into an archive. |
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(optional) is a symlink to gpgv2 for compatibility with the first version of GnuPG. |
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is a verify only version of gpg2. |
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is used to list, export and import Keybox data. |
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is a simple symmetric encryption tool. |
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is used to listen to a Unix Domain socket created by any of the GnuPG tools. |
Last updated on 2015-09-20 15:38:20 -0700
The GnuTLS package contains libraries and userspace tools which provide a secure layer over a reliable transport layer. Currently the GnuTLS library implements the proposed standards by the IETF's TLS working group. Quoting from the TLS protocol specification:
“The TLS protocol provides communications privacy over the Internet. The protocol allows client/server applications to communicate in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, or message forgery.”
GnuTLS provides support for TLS 1.2, TLS 1.1, TLS 1.0, and SSL 3.0 protocols, TLS extensions, including server name and max record size. Additionally, the library supports authentication using the SRP protocol, X.509 certificates and OpenPGP keys, along with support for the TLS Pre-Shared-Keys (PSK) extension, the Inner Application (TLS/IA) extension and X.509 and OpenPGP certificate handling.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (FTP): ftp://ftp.gnutls.org/gcrypt/gnutls/v3.4/gnutls-3.4.4.1.tar.xz
Download MD5 sum: 474efaba6fd6c6c6c0ebac2a3f431946
Download size: 6.4 MB
Estimated disk space required: 130 MB (146 MB, with tests)
Estimated build time: 0.8 SBU (4.0 SBU, with tests)
Certificate Authority Certificates, libtasn1-4.6 and p11-kit-0.23.1
Doxygen-1.8.10, GTK-Doc-1.24, Guile-2.0.11, libidn-1.32, texlive-20150521 or install-tl-unx, Unbound-1.5.4 (to build the DANE library), Valgrind-3.10.1 (used during the test suite), autogen, and Trousers (Trusted Platform Module support)
Note that if you do not install libtasn1-4.6, an older version shipped in the GnuTLS tarball will be used instead.
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/gnutls
Install GnuTLS by running the following commands:
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--with-default-trust-store-file=/etc/ssl/ca-bundle.crt &&
make
To test the results, issue: make check.
Now, as the root user:
make install
If you did not pass the --enable-gtk-doc parameter to the
configure
script, you can install the API documentation to the
/usr/share/gtk-doc/html/gnutls
directory using the following command as the root user:
make -C doc/reference install-data-local
--with-default-trust-store-file=/etc/ssl/ca-bundle.crt:
This switch tells configure where to find the
CA Certificates.
--enable-gtk-doc: Use this
parameter if GTK-Doc is
installed and you wish to rebuild and install the API
documentation.
--enable-openssl-compatibility:
Use this switch if you wish to build the OpenSSL
compatibility library.
--without-p11-kit: use this
switch if you have not installed p11-kit.
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is used to generate X.509 certificates, certificate requests, and private keys. |
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is a simple wrapper that waits for TLS/SSL connections, and proxies them to an unencrypted location. Only installed if libidn-1.32 is present. |
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is a tool used to generate and check DNS resource records for the DANE protocol. |
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is a simple client program to set up a TLS connection to some other computer. |
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is a simple client program to set up a TLS connection to some other computer and produces very verbose progress results. |
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is a simple server program that listens to incoming TLS connections. |
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is a program that can parse and print information about OCSP requests/responses, generate requests and verify responses. |
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is a program that allows handling data from PKCS #11 smart cards and security modules. |
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is a simple program that generates random keys for use with TLS-PSK. |
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is a simple program that emulates the programs in the Stanford SRP (Secure Remote Password) libraries using GnuTLS. |
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contains the core API functions and X.509 certificate API functions. |
Last updated on 2015-09-20 15:38:20 -0700
The GPGME package is a C library that allows cryptography support to be added to a program. It is designed to make access to public key crypto engines like GnuPG or GpgSM easier for applications. GPGME provides a high-level crypto API for encryption, decryption, signing, signature verification and key management.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (FTP): ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gpgme/gpgme-1.6.0.tar.bz2
Download MD5 sum: 60d730d22e8065fd5de309e8b98e304b
Download size: 964 KB
Estimated disk space required: 23 MB (without the test suite)
Estimated build time: 0.2 SBU (without the test suite)
GnuPG-2.1.7 (used during the testsuite)
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/gpgme
Install GPGME by running the following commands:
./configure --prefix=/usr && make
To test the results, issue: make check.
Now, as the root user:
make install
Last updated on 2015-09-20 15:38:20 -0700
The Haveged package contains a daemon that generates an unpredictable stream of random numbers and feeds the /dev/random device.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (HTTP): http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/haveged/haveged-1.9.1.tar.gz
Download MD5 sum: 015ff58cd10607db0e0de60aeca2f5f8
Download size: 468 KB
Estimated disk space required: 4.8 MB
Estimated build time: 0.2 SBU
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/haveged
Install Haveged by running the following commands:
./configure --prefix=/usr && make
To test the results, issue: make check.
Now, as the root user:
make install && mkdir -pv /usr/share/doc/haveged-1.9.1 && cp -v README /usr/share/doc/haveged-1.9.1
If you want the Haveged
daemon to start automatically when the system is booted,
install the /etc/rc.d/init.d/haveged init script
included in the blfs-bootscripts-20150924 package.
make install-haveged
Last updated on 2015-09-20 15:38:20 -0700
The next part of this chapter deals with firewalls. The principal firewall tool for Linux is Iptables. You will need to install Iptables if you intend on using any form of a firewall.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (HTTP): http://www.netfilter.org/projects/iptables/files/iptables-1.4.21.tar.bz2
Download (FTP): ftp://ftp.netfilter.org/pub/iptables/iptables-1.4.21.tar.bz2
Download MD5 sum: 536d048c8e8eeebcd9757d0863ebb0c0
Download size: 536 KB
Estimated disk space required: 15 MB
Estimated build time: 0.2 SBU
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/iptables
A firewall in Linux is accomplished through a portion of the kernel called netfilter. The interface to netfilter is Iptables. To use it, the appropriate kernel configuration parameters are found in:
[*] Networking support ---> [CONFIG_NET]
Networking Options --->
[*] Network packet filtering framework (Netfilter) ---> [CONFIG_NETFILTER]
The installation below does not include building some
specialized extension libraries which require the raw
headers in the Linux
source code. If you wish to build the additional extensions
(if you aren't sure, then you probably don't), you can look
at the INSTALL file to see an
example of how to change the KERNEL_DIR= parameter to
point at the Linux source
code. Note that if you upgrade the kernel version, you may
also need to recompile Iptables and that the BLFS team has
not tested using the raw kernel headers.
For some non-x86 architectures, the raw kernel headers may
be required. In that case, modify the KERNEL_DIR= parameter to
point at the Linux source
code.
Install Iptables by running the following commands:
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--sbindir=/sbin \
--enable-libipq \
--with-xtlibdir=/lib/xtables &&
make
This package does not come with a test suite.
Now, as the root user:
make install &&
ln -sfv ../../sbin/xtables-multi /usr/bin/iptables-xml &&
for file in ip4tc ip6tc ipq iptc xtables
do
mv -v /usr/lib/lib${file}.so.* /lib &&
ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/lib${file}.so) /usr/lib/lib${file}.so
done
--with-xtlibdir=/lib/xtables:
Ensure all Iptables modules
are installed in the /lib/xtables directory.
--enable-libipq: This switch
enables building of libipq.so
which can be used by some packages outside of BLFS.
--enable-nfsynproxy: This switch
enables installation of nfsynproxy SYNPROXY configuration tool.
ln -sfv ../../sbin/xtables-multi /usr/bin/iptables-xml: Ensure the symbolic link for iptables-xml is relative.
Introductory instructions for configuring your firewall are presented in the next section: Firewalling
To set up the iptables firewall at boot, install the
/etc/rc.d/init.d/iptables
init script included in the blfs-bootscripts-20150924 package.
make install-iptables
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is used to set up, maintain, and inspect the tables of IP packet filter rules in the Linux kernel. |
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is used to restore IP Tables from data specified on STDIN. Use I/O redirection provided by your shell to read from a file. |
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is used to dump the contents of an IP Table in easily parseable format to STDOUT. Use I/O-redirection provided by your shell to write to a file. |
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is used to convert the output of iptables-save to
an XML format. Using the |
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are a set of commands for IPV6 that parallel the iptables commands above. |
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(optional) configuration tool. SYNPROXY target makes handling of large SYN floods possible without the large performance penalties imposed by the connection tracking in such cases. |
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is a binary that behaves according to the name it is called by. |
Last updated on 2015-09-09 21:58:46 -0700
Before you read this part of the chapter, you should have already installed iptables as described in the previous section.
The general purpose of a firewall is to protect a computer or a network against malicious access.
In a perfect world, every daemon or service on every machine is perfectly configured and immune to flaws such as buffer overflows or other problems regarding its security. Furthermore, you trust every user accessing your services. In this world, you do not need to have a firewall.
In the real world however, daemons may be misconfigured and exploits against essential services are freely available. You may wish to choose which services are accessible by certain machines or you may wish to limit which machines or applications are allowed external access. Alternatively, you may simply not trust some of your applications or users. You are probably connected to the Internet. In this world, a firewall is essential.
Don't assume however, that having a firewall makes careful configuration redundant, or that it makes any negligent misconfiguration harmless. It doesn't prevent anyone from exploiting a service you intentionally offer but haven't recently updated or patched after an exploit went public. Despite having a firewall, you need to keep applications and daemons on your system properly configured and up to date. A firewall is not a cure all, but should be an essential part of your overall security strategy.
The word firewall can have several different meanings.
This is a hardware device or software program commercially sold (or offered via freeware) by companies such as Symantec which claims that it secures a home or desktop computer connected to the Internet. This type of firewall is highly relevant for users who do not know how their computers might be accessed via the Internet or how to disable that access, especially if they are always online and connected via broadband links.
This is a system placed between the Internet and an intranet. To minimize the risk of compromising the firewall itself, it should generally have only one role—that of protecting the intranet. Although not completely risk free, the tasks of doing the routing and IP masquerading (rewriting IP headers of the packets it routes from clients with private IP addresses onto the Internet so that they seem to come from the firewall itself) are commonly considered relatively secure.
This is often an old computer you may have retired and nearly forgotten, performing masquerading or routing functions, but offering non-firewall services such as a web-cache or mail. This may be used for home networks, but is not to be considered as secure as a firewall only machine because the combination of server and router/firewall on one machine raises the complexity of the setup.
This box performs masquerading or routing, but grants public access to some branch of your network which, because of public IPs and a physically separated structure, is essentially a separate network with direct Internet access. The servers on this network are those which must be easily accessible from both the Internet and intranet. The firewall protects both networks. This type of firewall has a minimum of three network interfaces.
This introduction on how to setup a firewall is not a complete guide to securing systems. Firewalling is a complex issue that requires careful configuration. The scripts quoted here are simply intended to give examples of how a firewall works. They are not intended to fit into any particular configuration and may not provide complete protection from an attack.
Customization of these scripts for your specific situation will be necessary for an optimal configuration, but you should make a serious study of the iptables documentation and creating firewalls in general before hacking away. Have a look at the list of links for further reading at the end of this section for more details. There you will find a list of URLs that contain quite comprehensive information about building your own firewall.
The firewall configuration script installed in the iptables section differs from the standard configuration script. It only has two of the standard targets: start and status. The other targets are clear and lock. For instance if you issue:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/iptables start
the firewall will be restarted just as it is upon system startup. The status target will present a list of all currently implemented rules. The clear target turns off all firewall rules and the lock target will block all packets in and out of the computer with the exception of the loopback interface.
The main startup firewall is located in the file /etc/rc.d/rc.iptables. The sections below
provide three different approaches that can be used for a
system.
You should always run your firewall rules from a script. This ensures consistency and a record of what was done. It also allows retention of comments that are essential for understanding the rules long after they were written.
A Personal Firewall is designed to let you access all the services offered on the Internet, but keep your box secure and your data private.
Below is a slightly modified version of Rusty Russell's recommendation from the Linux 2.4 Packet Filtering HOWTO. It is still applicable to the Linux 2.6 kernels.
cat > /etc/rc.d/rc.iptables << "EOF"
#!/bin/sh
# Begin rc.iptables
# Insert connection-tracking modules
# (not needed if built into the kernel)
modprobe nf_conntrack
modprobe xt_LOG
# Enable broadcast echo Protection
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts
# Disable Source Routed Packets
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/accept_source_route
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/default/accept_source_route
# Enable TCP SYN Cookie Protection
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_syncookies
# Disable ICMP Redirect Acceptance
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/default/accept_redirects
# Do not send Redirect Messages
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/send_redirects
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/default/send_redirects
# Drop Spoofed Packets coming in on an interface, where responses
# would result in the reply going out a different interface.
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/rp_filter
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/default/rp_filter
# Log packets with impossible addresses.
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/log_martians
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/default/log_martians
# be verbose on dynamic ip-addresses (not needed in case of static IP)
echo 2 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_dynaddr
# disable Explicit Congestion Notification
# too many routers are still ignorant
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn
# Set a known state
iptables -P INPUT DROP
iptables -P FORWARD DROP
iptables -P OUTPUT DROP
# These lines are here in case rules are already in place and the
# script is ever rerun on the fly. We want to remove all rules and
# pre-existing user defined chains before we implement new rules.
iptables -F
iptables -X
iptables -Z
iptables -t nat -F
# Allow local-only connections
iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
# Free output on any interface to any ip for any service
# (equal to -P ACCEPT)
iptables -A OUTPUT -j ACCEPT
# Permit answers on already established connections
# and permit new connections related to established ones
# (e.g. port mode ftp)
iptables -A INPUT -m conntrack --ctstate ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
# Log everything else. What's Windows' latest exploitable vulnerability?
iptables -A INPUT -j LOG --log-prefix "FIREWALL:INPUT "
# End $rc_base/rc.iptables
EOF
chmod 700 /etc/rc.d/rc.iptables
This script is quite simple, it drops all traffic coming into your computer that wasn't initiated from your computer, but as long as you are simply surfing the Internet you are unlikely to exceed its limits.
If you frequently encounter certain delays at accessing FTP servers, take a look at BusyBox example number 4.
Even if you have daemons or services running on your system, these will be inaccessible everywhere but from your computer itself. If you want to allow access to services on your machine, such as ssh or ping, take a look at BusyBox.
A true Firewall has two interfaces, one connected to an intranet, in this example eth0, and one connected to the Internet, here ppp0. To provide the maximum security for the firewall itself, make sure that there are no unnecessary servers running on it such as X11 et al. As a general principle, the firewall itself should not access any untrusted service (think of a remote server giving answers that makes a daemon on your system crash, or even worse, that implements a worm via a buffer-overflow).
cat > /etc/rc.d/rc.iptables << "EOF"
#!/bin/sh
# Begin rc.iptables
echo
echo "You're using the example configuration for a setup of a firewall"
echo "from Beyond Linux From Scratch."
echo "This example is far from being complete, it is only meant"
echo "to be a reference."
echo "Firewall security is a complex issue, that exceeds the scope"
echo "of the configuration rules below."
echo "You can find additional information"
echo "about firewalls in Chapter 4 of the BLFS book."
echo "http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs"
echo
# Insert iptables modules (not needed if built into the kernel).
modprobe nf_conntrack
modprobe nf_conntrack_ftp
modprobe xt_conntrack
modprobe xt_LOG
modprobe xt_state
# Enable broadcast echo Protection
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts
# Disable Source Routed Packets
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/accept_source_route
# Enable TCP SYN Cookie Protection
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_syncookies
# Disable ICMP Redirect Acceptance
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/accept_redirects
# Don't send Redirect Messages
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/default/send_redirects
# Drop Spoofed Packets coming in on an interface where responses
# would result in the reply going out a different interface.
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/default/rp_filter
# Log packets with impossible addresses.
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/log_martians
# Be verbose on dynamic ip-addresses (not needed in case of static IP)
echo 2 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_dynaddr
# Disable Explicit Congestion Notification
# Too many routers are still ignorant
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn
# Set a known state
iptables -P INPUT DROP
iptables -P FORWARD DROP
iptables -P OUTPUT DROP
# These lines are here in case rules are already in place and the
# script is ever rerun on the fly. We want to remove all rules and
# pre-existing user defined chains before we implement new rules.
iptables -F
iptables -X
iptables -Z
iptables -t nat -F
# Allow local connections
iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
iptables -A OUTPUT -o lo -j ACCEPT
# Allow forwarding if the initiated on the intranet
iptables -A FORWARD -m conntrack --ctstate ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD ! -i ppp+ -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -j ACCEPT
# Do masquerading
# (not needed if intranet is not using private ip-addresses)
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o ppp+ -j MASQUERADE
# Log everything for debugging
# (last of all rules, but before policy rules)
iptables -A INPUT -j LOG --log-prefix "FIREWALL:INPUT "
iptables -A FORWARD -j LOG --log-prefix "FIREWALL:FORWARD "
iptables -A OUTPUT -j LOG --log-prefix "FIREWALL:OUTPUT "
# Enable IP Forwarding
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
EOF
chmod 700 /etc/rc.d/rc.iptables
With this script your intranet should be reasonably secure against external attacks. No one should be able to setup a new connection to any internal service and, if it's masqueraded, makes your intranet invisible to the Internet. Furthermore, your firewall should be relatively safe because there are no services running that a cracker could attack.
If the interface you're connecting to the Internet
doesn't connect via PPP, you will need to change
<ppp+> to
the name of the interface (e.g., eth1) which you are
using.
This scenario isn't too different from the Masquerading Router, but additionally offers some services to your intranet. Examples of this can be when you want to administer your firewall from another host on your intranet or use it as a proxy or a name server.
Outlining a true concept of how to protect a server that offers services on the Internet goes far beyond the scope of this document. See the references at the end of this section for more information.
Be cautious. Every service you have enabled makes your setup more complex and your firewall less secure. You are exposed to the risks of misconfigured services or running a service with an exploitable bug. A firewall should generally not run any extra services. See the introduction to the Masquerading Router for some more details.
If you want to add services such as internal Samba or name servers that do not need to access the Internet themselves, the additional statements are quite simple and should still be acceptable from a security standpoint. Just add the following lines into the script before the logging rules.
iptables -A INPUT -i ! ppp+ -j ACCEPT
iptables -A OUTPUT -o ! ppp+ -j ACCEPT
If daemons, such as squid, have to access the Internet themselves, you could open OUTPUT generally and restrict INPUT.
iptables -A INPUT -m conntrack --ctstate ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A OUTPUT -j ACCEPT
However, it is generally not advisable to leave OUTPUT unrestricted. You lose any control over trojans who would like to "call home", and a bit of redundancy in case you've (mis-)configured a service so that it broadcasts its existence to the world.
To accomplish this, you should restrict INPUT and OUTPUT on all ports except those that it's absolutely necessary to have open. Which ports you have to open depends on your needs: mostly you will find them by looking for failed accesses in your log files.
Have a Look at the Following Examples:
Squid is caching the web:
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --sport 80 -m conntrack --ctstate ESTABLISHED \
-j ACCEPT
Your caching name server (e.g., named) does its lookups via UDP:
iptables -A OUTPUT -p udp --dport 53 -j ACCEPT
You want to be able to ping your computer to ensure it's still alive:
iptables -A INPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j ACCEPT
iptables -A OUTPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type echo-reply -j ACCEPT
If you are frequently accessing FTP servers or enjoy chatting, you might notice certain delays because some implementations of these daemons have the feature of querying an identd on your system to obtain usernames. Although there's really little harm in this, having an identd running is not recommended because many security experts feel the service gives out too much additional information.
To avoid these delays you could reject the requests with a 'tcp-reset':
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 113 -j REJECT --reject-with tcp-reset
To log and drop invalid packets (packets that came in after netfilter's timeout or some types of network scans) insert these rules at the top of the chain:
iptables -I INPUT 0 -p tcp -m conntrack --ctstate INVALID \
-j LOG --log-prefix "FIREWALL:INVALID "
iptables -I INPUT 1 -p tcp -m conntrack --ctstate INVALID -j DROP
Anything coming from the outside should not have a private address, this is a common attack called IP-spoofing:
iptables -A INPUT -i ppp+ -s 10.0.0.0/8 -j DROP
iptables -A INPUT -i ppp+ -s 172.16.0.0/12 -j DROP
iptables -A INPUT -i ppp+ -s 192.168.0.0/16 -j DROP
There are other addresses that you may also want to drop: 0.0.0.0/8, 127.0.0.0/8, 224.0.0.0/3 (multicast and experimental), 169.254.0.0/16 (Link Local Networks), and 192.0.2.0/24 (IANA defined test network).
If your firewall is a DHCP client, you need to allow those packets:
iptables -A INPUT -i ppp0 -p udp -s 0.0.0.0 --sport 67 \
-d 255.255.255.255 --dport 68 -j ACCEPT
To simplify debugging and be fair to anyone who'd like to access a service you have disabled, purposely or by mistake, you could REJECT those packets that are dropped.
Obviously this must be done directly after logging as the very last lines before the packets are dropped by policy:
iptables -A INPUT -j REJECT
These are only examples to show you some of the
capabilities of the firewall code in Linux. Have a look at
the man page of iptables. There you will find much more
information. The port numbers needed for this can be found
in /etc/services, in case you
didn't find them by trial and error in your log file.
Finally, there is one fact you must not forget: The effort spent attacking a system corresponds to the value the cracker expects to gain from it. If you are responsible for valuable information, you need to spend the time to protect it properly.
www.netfilter.org - Homepage of the netfilter/iptables project
Netfilter related FAQ
Netfilter related HOWTO's
en.tldp.org/LDP/nag2/x-087-2-firewall.html
en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Security-HOWTO.html
en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Firewall-HOWTO.html
www.linuxsecurity.com/docs/
www.little-idiot.de/firewall (German & outdated, but very comprehensive)
linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2000/03/10/netadmin/ddos.html
staff.washington.edu/dittrich/misc/ddos
www.e-infomax.com/ipmasq
www.circlemud.org/~jelson/writings/security/index.htm
www.securityfocus.com
www.cert.org - tech_tips
security.ittoolbox.com
www.insecure.org/reading.html
Last updated on 2014-08-10 11:18:14 -0700
The libcap package was installed in LFS, but if PAM support is desired, it needs to be reinstalled after PAM is built.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (HTTP): https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/security/linux-privs/libcap2/libcap-2.24.tar.xz
Download (FTP): ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/security/linux-privs/libcap2/libcap-2.24.tar.xz
Download MD5 sum: d43ab9f680435a7fff35b4ace8d45b80
Download size: 62 KB
Estimated disk space required: 1.5 MB
Estimated build time: 0.1 SBU
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/libcap
Install libcap by running the following commands:
sed -i 's:LIBDIR:PAM_&:g' pam_cap/Makefile && make
This package does not come with a test suite.
If you want to disable installing the static library, use this sed:
sed -i '/install.*STALIBNAME/ s/^/#/' libcap/Makefile
Now, as the root user:
make prefix=/usr \
SBINDIR=/sbin \
PAM_LIBDIR=/lib \
RAISE_SETFCAP=no install
Still as the root user, clean
up some library locations and permissions:
chmod -v 755 /usr/lib/libcap.so && mv -v /usr/lib/libcap.so.* /lib && ln -sfv ../../lib/libcap.so.2 /usr/lib/libcap.so
sed -i '...',
PAM_LIBDIR=/lib:
These correct PAM module install location.
RAISE_SETFCAP=no:
This parameter skips trying to use setcap on itself. This avoids an
installation error if the kernel or file system do not
support extended capabilities.
Last updated on 2015-09-20 15:38:20 -0700
The Linux PAM package contains Pluggable Authentication Modules used to enable the local system administrator to choose how applications authenticate users.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (HTTP): http://linux-pam.org/library/Linux-PAM-1.2.1.tar.bz2
Download MD5 sum: 9dc53067556d2dd567808fd509519dd6
Download size: 1.3 MB
Estimated disk space required: 33 MB (with tests)
Estimated build time: 0.3 SBU (with tests)
Optional Documentation
Download (HTTP): http://linux-pam.org/documentation/Linux-PAM-1.2.0-docs.tar.bz2
Download MD5 sum: 558378b8be9b8b5c987326f4529f2130
Download size 480 KB
Berkeley DB-6.1.26, CrackLib-2.9.6, libtirpc-0.3.2 and Prelude
docbook-xml-4.5, docbook-xsl-1.78.1, fop-2.0, libxslt-1.1.28 and w3m-0.5.3
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/linux-pam
If you downloaded the documentation, unpack the tarball by issuing the following command.
tar -xf ../Linux-PAM-1.2.0-docs.tar.bz2 --strip-components=1
Install Linux PAM by running the following commands:
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
--libdir=/usr/lib \
--enable-securedir=/lib/security \
--docdir=/usr/share/doc/Linux-PAM-1.2.1 &&
make
To test the results, a suitable /etc/pam.d/other configuration file must
exist.
If you have a system with Linux PAM installed and working,
be careful when modifying the files in /etc/pam.d, since your system may become
totally unusable. If you want to run the tests, you do not
need to create another /etc/pam.d/other file. The installed one
can be used for that purpose.
You should also be aware that make install overwrites
the configuration files in /etc/security as well as /etc/environment. In case you have
modified those files, be sure to backup them.
For a first installation, create the configuration file by
issuing the following commands as the root user:
install -v -m755 -d /etc/pam.d && cat > /etc/pam.d/other << "EOF" auth required pam_deny.so account required pam_deny.so password required pam_deny.so session required pam_deny.so EOF
Now run the tests by issuing make check. Ensure there are no errors produced by the tests before continuing the installation. Note that the checks are quite long. It may be useful to redirect the output to a log file in order to inspect it thoroughly.
Only in case of a first installation, remove the
configuration file created earlier by issuing the following
command as the root user:
rm -fv /etc/pam.d/*
Now, as the root user:
make install &&
chmod -v 4755 /sbin/unix_chkpwd &&
for file in pam pam_misc pamc
do
mv -v /usr/lib/lib${file}.so.* /lib &&
ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/lib${file}.so) /usr/lib/lib${file}.so
done
--enable-securedir=/lib/security:
This switch sets install location for the PAM modules.
chmod -v 4755
/sbin/unix_chkpwd: The unix_chkpwd helper program
must be setuid so that non-root processes can access the shadow
file.
Configuration information is placed in /etc/pam.d/. Below is an example file:
# Begin /etc/pam.d/other
auth required pam_unix.so nullok
account required pam_unix.so
session required pam_unix.so
password required pam_unix.so nullok
# End /etc/pam.d/other
Now set up some generic files. As root:
cat > /etc/pam.d/system-account << "EOF"# Begin /etc/pam.d/system-account account required pam_unix.so # End /etc/pam.d/system-accountEOF cat > /etc/pam.d/system-auth << "EOF"# Begin /etc/pam.d/system-auth auth required pam_unix.so # End /etc/pam.d/system-authEOF cat > /etc/pam.d/system-session << "EOF"# Begin /etc/pam.d/system-session session required pam_unix.so # End /etc/pam.d/system-sessionEOF
The remaining generic file depends on wheather CrackLib-2.9.6 is installed. If it is installed, use:
cat > /etc/pam.d/system-password << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/pam.d/system-password
# check new passwords for strength (man pam_cracklib)
password required pam_cracklib.so type=Linux retry=3 difok=5 \
difignore=23 minlen=9 dcredit=1 \
ucredit=1 lcredit=1 ocredit=1 \
dictpath=/lib/cracklib/pw_dict
# use sha512 hash for encryption, use shadow, and use the
# authentication token (chosen password) set by pam_cracklib
# above (or any previous modules)
password required pam_unix.so sha512 shadow use_authtok
# End /etc/pam.d/system-password
EOF
In its default configuration, pam_cracklib will allow
multiple case passwords as short as 6 characters, even
with the minlen
value set to 11. You should review the pam_cracklib(8)
man page and determine if these default values are
acceptable for the security of your system.
If CrackLib-2.9.6 is NOT installed, use:
cat > /etc/pam.d/system-password << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/pam.d/system-password
# use sha512 hash for encryption, use shadow, and try to use any previously
# defined authentication token (chosen password) set by any prior module
password required pam_unix.so sha512 shadow try_first_pass
# End /etc/pam.d/system-password
EOF
Now add a restrictive /etc/pam.d/other configuration file. With
this file, programs that are PAM aware will not run unless
a configuration file specifically for that application is
created.
cat > /etc/pam.d/other << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/pam.d/other
auth required pam_warn.so
auth required pam_deny.so
account required pam_warn.so
account required pam_deny.so
password required pam_warn.so
password required pam_deny.so
session required pam_warn.so
session required pam_deny.so
# End /etc/pam.d/other
EOF
The PAM man page (man pam) provides a good starting point for descriptions of fields and allowable entries. The Linux-PAM System Administrators' Guide is recommended for additional information.
Refer to http://debian.securedservers.com/kernel/pub/linux/libs/pam/modules.html for a list of various third-party modules available.
You should now reinstall the Shadow-4.2.1 package.
|
is a helper binary that creates home directories. |
|
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is used to interrogate and manipulate the login counter file. |
|
|
is used to interrogate and manipulate the login counter file, but does not have some limitations that pam_tally does. |
|
|
is used to check if the default timestamp is valid |
|
|
is a helper binary that verifies the password of the current user. |
|
|
is a helper binary that updates the password of a given user. |
|
|
provides the interfaces between applications and the PAM modules. |
Last updated on 2015-09-18 09:02:25 -0700
MIT Kerberos V5 is a free implementation of Kerberos 5. Kerberos is a network authentication protocol. It centralizes the authentication database and uses kerberized applications to work with servers or services that support Kerberos allowing single logins and encrypted communication over internal networks or the Internet.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (HTTP): http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/www/dist/krb5/1.13/krb5-1.13.2-signed.tar
Download MD5 sum: f7ebfa6c99c10b16979ebf9a98343189
Download size: 12 MB
Estimated disk space required: 142 MB (Additional 28 MB for the testsuite)
Estimated build time: 0.9 SBU (additional 5.0 SBU for the testsuite)
DejaGnu-1.5.3 (for full test coverage), GnuPG-2.1.7 (to authenticate the package), keyutils-1.5.9, OpenLDAP-2.4.42, Python-2.7.10 (used during the testsuite) and rpcbind-0.2.3 (used during the testsuite)
Some sort of time synchronization facility on your system (like ntp-4.2.8p3) is required since Kerberos won't authenticate if there is a time difference between a kerberized client and the KDC server.
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/mitkrb
MIT Kerberos V5 is
distributed in a TAR file containing a compressed TAR package
and a detached PGP-2 ASC file.
You'll need to unpack the distribution tar file, then unpack
the compressed tar file before starting the build.
After unpacking the distribution tarball and if you have
GnuPG-2.1.7 installed, you can authenticate
the package. First, check the contents of the file
krb5-1.13.2.tar.gz.asc.
gpg2 --verify krb5-1.13.2.tar.gz.asc krb5-1.13.2.tar.gz
You will probably see output similar to:
gpg: Signature made Fri May 8 23:40:13 2015 utc using RSA key ID 0055C305
gpg: Can't check signature: No public key
You can import the public key with:
gpg2 --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 0055C305
Now re-verify the package with the first command above. You should get a indication of a good signature, but the key will still not be certified with a trusted signature. Trusting the downloaded key is a separate operation but it is up to you to determine the level of trust.
Build MIT Kerberos V5 by running the following commands:
cd src &&
sed -e "s@python2.5/Python.h@& python2.7/Python.h@g" \
-e "s@-lpython2.5]@&,\n AC_CHECK_LIB(python2.7,main,[PYTHON_LIB=-lpython2.7])@g" \
-i configure.in &&
sed -e 's@\^u}@^u cols 300}@' \
-i tests/dejagnu/config/default.exp &&
autoconf &&
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
--localstatedir=/var/lib \
--with-system-et \
--with-system-ss \
--with-system-verto=no \
--enable-dns-for-realm &&
make
To test the build, issue: make check. You need at least Tcl-8.6.4, which is used to drive the testsuite. Furthermore, DejaGnu-1.5.3 must be available for some of the tests to run. If you have a former version of MIT Kerberos V5 installed, it may happen that the test suite pick up the installed versions of the libraries, rather than the newly built ones. If so, it is better to run the tests after the installation.
Now, as the root user:
make install &&
for LIBRARY in gssapi_krb5 gssrpc k5crypto kadm5clnt kadm5srv \
kdb5 kdb_ldap krad krb5 krb5support verto ; do
chmod -v 755 /usr/lib/lib$LIBRARY.so
done &&
unset LIBRARY &&
mv -v /usr/lib/libkrb5.so.3* /lib &&
mv -v /usr/lib/libk5crypto.so.3* /lib &&
mv -v /usr/lib/libkrb5support.so.0* /lib &&
ln -v -sf ../../lib/libkrb5.so.3.3 /usr/lib/libkrb5.so &&
ln -v -sf ../../lib/libk5crypto.so.3.1 /usr/lib/libk5crypto.so &&
ln -v -sf ../../lib/libkrb5support.so.0.1 /usr/lib/libkrb5support.so &&
mv -v /usr/bin/ksu /bin &&
chmod -v 755 /bin/ksu &&
install -v -dm755 /usr/share/doc/krb5-1.13.2 &&
cp -vfr ../doc/* /usr/share/doc/krb5-1.13.2
sed -e ...: The first sed fixes Python detection. The second one increases the width of the virtual terminal used for some tests, to prevent some spurious characters to be echoed, which is taken as a failure.
--localstatedir=/var/lib: This
parameter is used so that the Kerberos variable run-time data
is located in /var/lib instead
of /usr/var.
--with-system-et:
This switch causes the build to use the system-installed
versions of the error-table support software.
--with-system-ss:
This switch causes the build to use the system-installed
versions of the subsystem command-line interface software.
--with-system-verto=no: This
switch fixes a bug in the package: it does not recognize its
own verto library installed previously. This is not a
problem, if reinstalling the same version, but if you are
updating, the old library is used as system's one, instead of
installing the new version.
--enable-dns-for-realm: This
switch allows realms to be resolved using the DNS server.
mv -v /usr/bin/ksu
/bin: Moves the ksu program to the
/bin directory so that it is
available when the /usr
filesystem is not mounted.
--with-ldap: Use this switch if
you want to compile OpenLDAP
database backend module.
You should consider installing some sort of password
checking dictionary so that you can configure the
installation to only accept strong passwords. A
suitable dictionary to use is shown in the CrackLib-2.9.6 instructions. Note
that only one file can be used, but you can concatenate
many files into one. The configuration file shown below
assumes you have installed a dictionary to /usr/share/dict/words.
Create the Kerberos configuration file with the following
commands issued by the root user:
cat > /etc/krb5.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/krb5.conf
[libdefaults]
default_realm = <LFS.ORG>
encrypt = true
[realms]
<LFS.ORG> = {
kdc = <belgarath.lfs.org>
admin_server = <belgarath.lfs.org>
dict_file = /usr/share/dict/words
}
[domain_realm]
.<lfs.org> = <LFS.ORG>
[logging]
kdc = SYSLOG[:INFO[:AUTH]]
admin_server = SYSLOG[INFO[:AUTH]]
default = SYSLOG[[:SYS]]
# End /etc/krb5.conf
EOF
You will need to substitute your domain and proper
hostname for the occurrences of the <belgarath> and
<lfs.org>
names.
default_realm should be the
name of your domain changed to ALL CAPS. This isn't
required, but both Heimdal and MIT recommend it.
encrypt = true provides
encryption of all traffic between kerberized clients and
servers. It's not necessary and can be left off. If you
leave it off, you can encrypt all traffic from the client
to the server using a switch on the client program
instead.
The [realms] parameters tell
the client programs where to look for the KDC
authentication services.
The [domain_realm] section
maps a domain to a realm.
Create the KDC database:
kdb5_util create -r <LFS.ORG> -s
Now you should populate the database with principals
(users). For now, just use your regular login name or
root.
kadmin.localkadmin.local:add_policy dict-onlykadmin.local:addprinc -policy dict-only<loginname>
The KDC server and any machine running kerberized server daemons must have a host key installed:
kadmin.local:addprinc -randkey host/<belgarath.lfs.org>
After choosing the defaults when prompted, you will have to export the data to a keytab file:
kadmin.local:ktadd host/<belgarath.lfs.org>
This should have created a file in /etc named krb5.keytab (Kerberos 5). This file
should have 600 (root rw
only) permissions. Keeping the keytab files from public
access is crucial to the overall security of the Kerberos
installation.
Exit the kadmin program (use quit or exit) and return back to the shell prompt. Start the KDC daemon manually, just to test out the installation:
/usr/sbin/krb5kdc
Attempt to get a ticket with the following command:
kinit <loginname>
You will be prompted for the password you created. After you get your ticket, you can list it with the following command:
klist
Information about the ticket should be displayed on the screen.
To test the functionality of the keytab file, issue the following command:
ktutilktutil:rkt /etc/krb5.keytabktutil:l
This should dump a list of the host principal, along with the encryption methods used to access the principal.
At this point, if everything has been successful so far, you can feel fairly confident in the installation and configuration of the package.
For additional information consult the documentation for krb5-1.13.2 on which the above instructions are based.
If you want to start Kerberos services at boot, install the
/etc/rc.d/init.d/krb5 init
script included in the blfs-bootscripts-20150924
package using the following command:
make install-krb5
|
is a GSSAPI test client. |
|
|
is a GSSAPI test server. |
|
|
is a host keytable manipulation utility. |
|
|
is a utility used to make modifications to the Kerberos database. |
|
|
is a utility similar at kadmin, but if the database is db2, the local client kadmin.local, is intended to run directly on the master KDC without Kerberos authentication. |
|
|
is a server for administrative access to a Kerberos database. |
|
|
allows an administrator to manage realms, Kerberos services and ticket policies. |
|
|
is the KDC database utility. |
|
|
removes the current set of tickets. |
|
|
is used to authenticate to the Kerberos server as a principal and acquire a ticket granting ticket that can later be used to obtain tickets for other services. |
|
|
reads and displays the current tickets in the credential cache. |
|
|
is a program for changing Kerberos 5 passwords. |
|
|
takes a principal database in a specified format and converts it into a stream of database records. |
|
|
receives a database sent by kprop and writes it as a local database. |
|
|
displays the contents of the KDC database update log to standard output. |
|
|
gives information on how to link programs against libraries. |
|
|
is the Kerberos 5 server. |
|
|
send problem report (PR) to a central support site. |
|
|
is the super user program using Kerberos protocol.
Requires a properly configured |
|
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makes the specified credential cache the primary cache for the collection, if a cache collection is available. |
|
|
is a program for managing Kerberos keytabs. |
|
|
prints keyversion numbers of Kerberos principals. |
|
|
used to contact a sample server and authenticate to it using Kerberos 5 tickets, then display the server's response. |
|
|
is a simple UDP-based sample client program, for demonstration. |
|
|
is a simple UDP-based server application, for demonstration. |
|
|
is the sample Kerberos 5 server. |
|
|
is an another sample client. |
|
|
is an another sample server. |
|
|
contain the Generic Security Service Application Programming Interface (GSSAPI) functions which provides security services to callers in a generic fashion, supportable with a range of underlying mechanisms and technologies and hence allowing source-level portability of applications to different environments. |
|
|
contains the administrative authentication and password checking functions required by Kerberos 5 client-side programs. |
|
|
contain the administrative authentication and password checking functions required by Kerberos 5 servers. |
|
|
is a Kerberos 5 authentication/authorization database access library. |
|
|
contains the internal support library for RADIUS functionality. |
|
|
is an all-purpose Kerberos 5 library. |
Last updated on 2015-09-18 14:40:16 -0700
The Nettle package contains the low-level cryptographic library that is designed to fit easily in many contexts.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (HTTP): https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/nettle/nettle-3.1.1.tar.gz
Download (FTP): ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/nettle/nettle-3.1.1.tar.gz
Download MD5 sum: b40fa88dc32f37a182b6b42092ebb144
Download size: 1.8 MB
Estimated disk space required: 60 MB (additional 88 MB for the tests)
Estimated build time: 0.2 SBU (additional 0.1 SBU for the tests)
OpenSSL-1.0.2d (for examples)
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/nettle
Install Nettle by running the following commands:
./configure --prefix=/usr && make
To test the results, issue: make check.
If you want to disable installing the static library, use this sed:
sed -i '/^install-here/ s/ install-static//' Makefile
Now, as the root user:
make install &&
chmod -v 755 /usr/lib/lib{hogweed,nettle}.so &&
install -v -m755 -d /usr/share/doc/nettle-3.1.1 &&
install -v -m644 nettle.html /usr/share/doc/nettle-3.1.1
|
calulates a hash value using a specified algorithm. |
|
|
outputs a sequence of pseudorandom (non-cryptographic) bytes, using Knuth's lagged fibonacci generator. The stream is useful for testing, but should not be used to generate cryptographic keys or anything else that needs real randomness. |
|
|
password-based key derivation function that take as input a password or passphrase and typically strengthen it and protect against certain pre-computation attacks by using salting and expensive computation. |
|
|
converts private and public RSA keys from PKCS #1 format to sexp format. |
|
|
converts an s-expression to a different encoding. |
Last updated on 2015-09-20 15:38:20 -0700
The Network Security Services (NSS) package is a set of libraries designed to support cross-platform development of security-enabled client and server applications. Applications built with NSS can support SSL v2 and v3, TLS, PKCS #5, PKCS #7, PKCS #11, PKCS #12, S/MIME, X.509 v3 certificates, and other security standards. This is useful for implementing SSL and S/MIME or other Internet security standards into an application.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (HTTP): https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/security/nss/releases/NSS_3_20_RTM/src/nss-3.20.tar.gz
Download MD5 sum: db83988499d1eb3b623d77ecf495b0f5
Download size: 6.7 MB
Estimated disk space required: 84 MB
Estimated build time: 0.7 SBU
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/nss
This package does not support parallel build.
Install NSS by running the following commands:
patch -Np1 -i ../nss-3.20-standalone-1.patch && cd nss && make BUILD_OPT=1 \ NSPR_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/include/nspr \ USE_SYSTEM_ZLIB=1 \ ZLIB_LIBS=-lz \ $([ $(uname -m) = x86_64 ] && echo USE_64=1) \ $([ -f /usr/include/sqlite3.h ] && echo NSS_USE_SYSTEM_SQLITE=1) -j1
This package does not come with a test suite.
Now, as the root user:
cd ../dist &&
install -v -m755 Linux*/lib/*.so /usr/lib &&
install -v -m644 Linux*/lib/{*.chk,libcrmf.a} /usr/lib &&
install -v -m755 -d /usr/include/nss &&
cp -v -RL {public,private}/nss/* /usr/include/nss &&
chmod -v 644 /usr/include/nss/* &&
install -v -m755 Linux*/bin/{certutil,nss-config,pk12util} /usr/bin &&
install -v -m644 Linux*/lib/pkgconfig/nss.pc /usr/lib/pkgconfig
BUILD_OPT=1: This
option is passed to make so that the build is
performed with no debugging symbols built into the binaries
and the default compiler optimizations are used.
NSPR_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/include/nspr:
This option sets the location of the nspr headers.
USE_SYSTEM_ZLIB=1:
This option is passed to make to ensure that the
libssl3.so library is linked to
the system installed zlib
instead of the in-tree version.
ZLIB_LIBS=-lz: This
option provides the linker flags needed to link to the system
zlib.
$([ $(uname -m) = x86_64 ]
&& echo USE_64=1): The USE_64=1 option is required on x86_64, otherwise
make will try
(and fail) to create 32-bit objects. The [ $(uname -m) =
x86_64 ] test ensures it has no effect on a 32 bit system.
([ -f /usr/include/sqlite3.h ]
&& echo NSS_USE_SYSTEM_SQLITE=1):
This tests if sqlite is
installed and if so it echos the option
NSS_USE_SYSTEM_SQLITE=1 to make so that libsoftokn3.so will link against the system
version of sqlite.
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is the Mozilla Certificate Database Tool. It is a command-line utility that can create and modify the Netscape Communicator cert8.db and key3.db database files. It can also list, generate, modify, or delete certificates within the cert8.db file and create or change the password, generate new public and private key pairs, display the contents of the key database, or delete key pairs within the key3.db file. |
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is used to determine the NSS library settings of the installed NSS libraries. |
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is a tool for importing certificates and keys from pkcs #12 files into NSS or exporting them. It can also list certificates and keys in such files. |
Last updated on 2015-09-09 21:58:46 -0700
The OpenSSH package contains ssh clients and the sshd daemon. This is useful for encrypting authentication and subsequent traffic over a network. The ssh and scp commands are secure implementions of telnet and rcp respectively.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (HTTP): http://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/OpenSSH/portable/openssh-7.1p1.tar.gz
Download (FTP): ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/OpenSSH/portable/openssh-7.1p1.tar.gz
Download MD5 sum: 8709736bc8a8c253bc4eeb4829888ca5
Download size: 1.5 MB
Estimated disk space required: 44 MB (52 MB, with tests)
Estimated build time: 0.4 SBU (running the tests takes 10+ minutes, irrespective of processor speed)
OpenSSL-1.0.2d or LibreSSL Portable
Linux-PAM-1.2.1, X Window System, MIT Kerberos V5-1.13.2, libedit, OpenSC, and libsectok
OpenJDK-1.8.0.60, Net-tools-CVS_20101030, and Sysstat-11.1.6
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/OpenSSH
OpenSSH runs as two
processes when connecting to other computers. The first
process is a privileged process and controls the issuance of
privileges as necessary. The second process communicates with
the network. Additional installation steps are necessary to
set up the proper environment, which are performed by issuing
the following commands as the root user:
install -v -m700 -d /var/lib/sshd &&
chown -v root:sys /var/lib/sshd &&
groupadd -g 50 sshd &&
useradd -c 'sshd PrivSep' \
-d /var/lib/sshd \
-g sshd \
-s /bin/false \
-u 50 sshd
Install OpenSSH by running the following commands:
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--sysconfdir=/etc/ssh \
--with-md5-passwords \
--with-privsep-path=/var/lib/sshd &&
make
The testsuite requires an installed copy of scp to complete the
multiplexing tests. To run the test suite, first copy the
scp program to
/usr/bin, making sure that you
back up any existing copy first.
To test the results, issue: make tests.
Now, as the root user:
make install &&
install -v -m755 contrib/ssh-copy-id /usr/bin &&
install -v -m644 contrib/ssh-copy-id.1 \
/usr/share/man/man1 &&
install -v -m755 -d /usr/share/doc/openssh-7.1p1 &&
install -v -m644 INSTALL LICENCE OVERVIEW README* \
/usr/share/doc/openssh-7.1p1
--sysconfdir=/etc/ssh: This
prevents the configuration files from being installed in
/usr/etc.
--with-md5-passwords:
This enables the use of MD5 passwords.
--with-pam: This
parameter enables Linux-PAM
support in the build.
--with-xauth=/usr/bin/xauth:
Set the default location for the xauth binary for X
authentication. Change the location if xauth will be installed to
a different path. This can also be controlled from
sshd_config with the
XAuthLocation keyword. You can omit this switch if
Xorg is already installed.
--with-kerberos5=/usr: This
option is used to include Kerberos 5 support in the build.
--with-libedit: This
option enables line editing and history features for
sftp.
~/.ssh/*, /etc/ssh/ssh_config, and /etc/ssh/sshd_config
There are no required changes to any of these files.
However, you may wish to view the /etc/ssh/ files and make any changes
appropriate for the security of your system. One
recommended change is that you disable root login via ssh. Execute the
following command as the root user to disable root login via ssh:
echo "PermitRootLogin no" >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config
If you want to be able to log in without typing in your password, first create ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub with ssh-keygen and then copy ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the remote computer that you want to log into. You'll need to change REMOTE_USERNAME and REMOTE_HOSTNAME for the username and hostname of the remote computer and you'll also need to enter your password for the ssh-copy-id command to succeed:
ssh-keygen && ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pubREMOTE_USERNAME@REMOTE_HOSTNAME
Once you've got passwordless logins working it's actually
more secure than logging in with a password (as the private
key is much longer than most people's passwords). If you
would like to now disable password logins, as the
root user:
echo "PasswordAuthentication no" >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config && echo "ChallengeResponseAuthentication no" >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config
If you added LinuxPAM
support and you want ssh to use it then you will need to
add a configuration file for sshd and enable use of LinuxPAM. Note, ssh only uses PAM to
check passwords, if you've disabled password logins these
commands are not needed. If you want to use PAM issue the
following commands as the root user:
sed 's@d/login@d/sshd@g' /etc/pam.d/login > /etc/pam.d/sshd && chmod 644 /etc/pam.d/sshd && echo "UsePAM yes" >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Additional configuration information can be found in the man pages for sshd, ssh and ssh-agent.
To start the SSH server at system boot, install the
/etc/rc.d/init.d/sshd init
script included in the blfs-bootscripts-20150924
package.
make install-sshd
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is a file copy program that acts like rcp except it uses an encrypted protocol. |
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is an FTP-like program that works over the SSH1 and SSH2 protocols. |
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is a symlink to ssh. |
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is an rlogin/rsh-like client program except it uses an encrypted protocol. |
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is a daemon that listens for ssh login requests. |
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is a tool which adds keys to the ssh-agent. |
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is an authentication agent that can store private keys. |
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is a script that enables logins on remote machine using local keys. |
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is a key generation tool. |
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is a utility for gathering public host keys from a number of hosts. |
Last updated on 2015-09-08 09:43:51 -0700
The OpenSSL package contains management tools and libraries relating to cryptography. These are useful for providing cryptography functions to other packages, such as OpenSSH, email applications and web browsers (for accessing HTTPS sites).
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (HTTP): https://openssl.org/source/openssl-1.0.2d.tar.gz
Download (FTP): ftp://openssl.org/source/openssl-1.0.2d.tar.gz
Download MD5 sum: 38dd619b2e77cbac69b99f52a053d25a
Download size: 5.1 MB
Estimated disk space required: 49 MB (additional 2 MB for tests)
Estimated build time: 1.0 SBU (additional 0.3 SBU for tests)
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/OpenSSL
Install OpenSSL with the following commands:
./config --prefix=/usr \
--openssldir=/etc/ssl \
--libdir=lib \
shared \
zlib-dynamic &&
make
To test the results, issue: make -j1 test.
If you want to disable installing the static libraries, use this sed:
sed -i 's# libcrypto.a##;s# libssl.a##' Makefile
Now, as the root user:
make MANDIR=/usr/share/man MANSUFFIX=ssl install && install -dv -m755 /usr/share/doc/openssl-1.0.2d && cp -vfr doc/* /usr/share/doc/openssl-1.0.2d
shared: This
parameter forces the creation of shared libraries along with
the static libraries.
zlib-dynamic: This
parameter adds compression/decompression functionality using
the libz library.
no-rc5 no-idea: When added to the
./config
command, this will eliminate the building of those encryption
methods. Patent licenses may be needed for you to utilize
either of those methods in your projects.
make MANDIR=/usr/share/man
MANSUFFIX=ssl install: This command installs
OpenSSL with the man pages
in /usr/share/man instead of
/etc/ssl/man and appends "ssl"
suffix to the manual page names to avoid conflicts with
manual pages installed by other packages.
Most users will want to install Certificate Authority Certificates for validation of downloaded certificates. For example, these certificates can be used by git-2.5.0, cURL-7.44.0 or Wget-1.16.3 when accessing secure (https protocol) sites. To do this, follow the instructions from the Certificate Authority Certificates page.
Users who just want to use OpenSSL for providing functions to
other programs such as OpenSSH and web browsers do not need
to worry about additional configuration. This is an
advanced topic and so those who do need it would normally
be expected to either know how to properly update
/etc/ssl/openssl.cnf or be
able to find out how to do it.
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is a Perl script that scans all files in a directory and adds symbolic links to their hash values. |
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is a command-line tool for using the various cryptography functions of OpenSSL's crypto library from the shell. It can be used for various functions which are documented in man 1 openssl. |
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implements a wide range of cryptographic algorithms used in various Internet standards. The services provided by this library are used by the OpenSSL implementations of SSL, TLS and S/MIME, and they have also been used to implement OpenSSH, OpenPGP, and other cryptographic standards. |
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implements the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1) protocols. It provides a rich API, documentation on which can be found by running man 3 ssl. |
Last updated on 2015-09-08 09:43:51 -0700
The p11-kit package Provides a way to load and enumerate PKCS #11 (a Cryptographic Token Interface Standard) modules.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.8 platform.
Download (HTTP): http://p11-glue.freedesktop.org/releases/p11-kit-0.23.1.tar.gz
Download MD5 sum: 96f073270c489c9a594e1c9413f42db8
Download size: 972 KB
Estimated disk space required: 64 MB (additional 6 MB for tests)
Estimated build time: 0.3 SBU (additional 0.1 SBU for tests)
Certificate Authority Certificates, libtasn1-4.6, and libffi-3.2.1
NSS-3.20, GTK-Doc-1.24 and libxslt-1.1.28
User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/p11-kit