This document provides an overview and summary of the Ubuntu operating system. It discusses Ubuntu's history beginning with the creation of Linux by Linus Torvalds in 1991. It then covers key aspects of Ubuntu including its design principles, process and memory management, security features, networking capabilities, and graphical user interface. The document also provides examples of basic commands and important directories in Ubuntu. It concludes with recommendations for securing the boot loader to help harden the Ubuntu system.

1. Presentation on the Ubuntu
Operating System
Colorado Technical University
CS 340 – Operating Systems
October 2010
Loren Karl Schwappach

2. Overview
 Security
 Hacking
 Networking
 Robustness
 Interface
 Basic Commands
 System Hardening
 Summary
 Introduction
 History
 Design Principles
 Process Management
 Memory Management
 Process Communication
 Deadlock Handling
 File System

3. Ubuntu 10.10
• Secure, Super-fast, and great-looking
• Open source, free, & widely distributed
• Suitable for server and desktop use.
• Includes > 1000 pieces of software
• Ubuntu One Personal Cloud
• Linux kernel version 2.6 w/ Gnome 2.16
Support for:
• Intel x86 (IBM-compatible PC)
• AMD64 (Hammer)
• PowerPC (iBook, Powerbook, G4, G5)
http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/features
Introduction

4. •1991, Linus Torvalds (a Finnish student) writes a open
source small, self-contained kernel (Linux) for the 80386
processor.
•Version 0.01 - no network support, basic VM subsystem,
support for Minix fs and limited device-driver support.
[1]
•1994, Version 1.0 - networking (TCP/IP protocols, new file
system, SCSI, floppy disks, CD-ROM devices, sound cards,
mice, keyboards, floating point emulation, UNIX- style IPC
and extended VM subsystem. [1]
•1996, Version 2.0 - PCI support, 80386 CPU virtual 8086
mode , memory management improvements, ISDN,
internal kernel threading, automatic module loading and
multiprocessor support. [1]
•1999, Version 2.2 - firewalling, routing and traffic
management, improved symmetric multiprocessor (SMP)
performance and (Acorn, Apple, and NT) disk support. [1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel
History

5. Ubuntu - Debian GNU/Linux distribution.
• Originally released under name “no-name-yet.com.”
• Ubuntu - African word that means “humaneness.”
•2004, 1st publicly released version 4.10
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ubuntu_releases
Variants include :
• Edubuntu (designed for school environments)
• Kubuntu (Uses KDE GUI environment)
• Mythbuntu (Home Theater TVs)
• Ubuntu Studio (Professional AV editing software)
• Xubuntu (uses XFCE desktop environment)
• 2010, Latest version 10.10 Maverick Meerkat:
•Linux Kernel version 2.6.35
Software:
• OpenOffice, Firefox, Empathy IM, Transmission (BT
client), Gimp, games, and more.
•Desktop version supports Intel x86 and AMD64 .
http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/why-use-ubuntu
History

6. History
Linux kernel size as an indicator of complexity

7. Ubuntu’s Linux kernel (2.6):
Multiuser, multitasking system w/ complete set of UNIX-
compatible tools.
Linux supports the Portable Operating System Interface
[for Unix] (POSIX) threading extensions (Pthreads and a
subset of the POSIX extensions for real time process
control. [1]
The Linux system three bodies of code:
Kernel – Maintains OS abstractions, virtual memory and
process management. [1]
System Libraries – Standard set of functions for
applications to interact with the kernel. [1]
System utilities – Programs that perform individual,
specialized management tasks. [1]
Design Principles

8. Kernel
•Ability to load/unload sections of code on demand.
Three components to the module support :
• Module management (allows loading modules in mem)
•Driver registration (allows modules to tell kernel when new
drivers are available)
• Conflict-resolution.
Driver Registration tables include the following:
•Device Drivers – Character devices (printers, terminals,
mice), block devices (disk drives), and network interface
devices. [1]
•File Systems – Anything that implements Linux’s virtual- file-
system call routines. [1]
• Network protocols – IPX, firewall packet filtering rules, etc.
[1]
•Binary format – specifies way for recognizing/loading an
executable file. [1]
Design Principles

9. Linux process properties generally fall into three groups:
Process Identity consists of:
Process ID
Credentials (associated UID/GIDs)
Personality (modifies semantics of sys calls (unique to Linux)).
Process environment (inherited from parent) is composed of:
Argument vector (lists command line arguments)
Environment vector (list of NAME=VALUE pairs).
Process context (state of program in time) includes:
Scheduling context – Information to suspend and restart the
process. Includes: process registers, floating point registers,
scheduling priority, and process’s kernel stack)
Accounting – Information about resource usage
File table – array of pointers to kernel file structures
Signal-handler table – Asynchronous handling of external events.
Virtual memory context – describes content of address space
Process Management

10. Linux kernel 2.6 Scheduling:
• 2 Algorithms Used: Time Scheduling and Real Time
• Uses FIFO & round robin real time scheduling
• Real Time Priorities are from 1-100
Process Management

11. Linux avoids segmentation and separates physical
memory into three zones:
ZONE_DMA (lower 16MB of physical memory),
ZONE_NORMAL (normally used 16-896 MB),
ZONE_HIGHMEM (Not mapped into kernel address
space > 896MB). [1]
Page tables keep track of the physical pages of memory
that are used by a process, and they map the virtual
pages to the physical pages.
Linux kernel 2.6 uses reverse page mapping
Memory Management

12. Virtual memory manager:
•Responsible for maintaining the address space
visible to each process.
• Creates pages of virtual memory on demand and
manages loading of pages to/from disk.
•Views a process address space as independent
separate regions and as independent separate pages.
•Reserves its own internal use, architecture
dependant region of virtual address space for every
process.
Paging system divided into two sections:
•Policy algorithm (decides which pages to write to disk
and when to write them)
• Paging mechanism (carries out transfers and pages
data back into physical memory when needed).
Memory Management

13. MMU (Memory Management Unit) – allows software
to reference physical memory by aliased addresses
(using pages and page tables)
Zoned Buddy Allocator – responsible for page
allocations. Manages list of physical contiguous pages
and maps them to MMU page tables & manages
memory zones.
Slab Allocator – Allows flexible memory sizes (Than
standard 4kb page) by creating cache objects.
Kernel Threads – Recovery and management of
memory (kscand, kswaped, kupdated, bdflush)
Memory Management

14. Memory Management
VM Page State Machine
High Level Overview of VM System

15. Signals - Sent by other processes or the kernel to a specific process to indicate various
conditions.
Pipes - Unnamed pipes set up by the shell normally with the "|" character to route
output from one program to the input of another.
FIFOS - Named pipes operating on the basis of first data in, first data out.
Message queues - Message queues are a mechanism set up to allow one or more
processes to write messages that can be read by one or more other processes.
Semaphores - Counters that are used to control access to shared resources. These
counters are used as a locking mechanism to prevent more than one process from
using the resource at a time.
Shared memory - The mapping of a memory area to be shared by multiple processes.
Process Communication

16. Deadlock - a condition where one or more executing threads and one or more resources,
such that each thread is waiting for one of the resources, but all the resources are already
held. [1]
In essence the threads are all waiting for each other, but they will never make any
progress toward releasing the resources that they already hold.
Unlike some Operating Systems:
“There is no deadlock detection for applications or threads by the Linux kernel”.
Linux requires the use of semaphores (sleeping locks), spin locks (a lock that can be held
by at most one thread of execution), and the Big Kernel Lock (BKL) to attempt deadlock
prevention.
Deadlock Handling

17. Linux kernel version 2.6 used by Ubuntu 10.10 introduces:
A new type of lock called a seq lock (sequence lock).
• Works by maintaining a sequence counter..
•Whenever the in question data is written to, a lock is obtained and a sequence
number is incremented.
•Prior to and after reading the data, the sequence number is read. If the values are the
same, then a write did not begin in the middle of the read.
Deadlock Handling

18. Linux 2.6 retains UNIX’s standard file-system module.
•Allows Linux files to be anything capable of handling the input or output of a
stream of data.
• Device drivers, interprocess communication channels and network connections
all look like files on Linux.
•The Linux kernel hides the implementation details of any single file type behind a
layer of software called the virtual file system (VFS). [1]
The VFS defines four major types of objects:
• inode object – represents an individual file.
• file object – represents an open file.
• superblock object – represents the entire file system.
• dentry object – represents an individual directory entry.
File System

19. XFS was a file system:
Developed by Silicon Graphics and designed to handle files as large as a million terabytes,
in 32 bit Linux systems it can handle files up to 16 terabytes.
Ext4 is currently the default choice of Ubuntu 10.10 and performs much better than ext2,
ext3, and XFS. A new file system btrfs is also supported in Ubuntu version 10.10 but is not
yet stable [9]
Ext4 (forth extended file system) - journaling (keeps track of changes in a journal before
changing in main file) Linux file system that became stable in 2008.
Ext4 :
•Supports volumes up to 1 Exabyte (1018) and files with sizes up to 16 terabytes
(16x1012). Uses extents (range of contiguous physical blocks) to replace the traditional
block mapping used by ext2/3, performs pre-allocation of on-disk space, delayed
allocation (using an allocate-on-flush technique), breaks the ext3 32,000 subdirectory
limit (now 64,000), performs journal check-summing (improved reliability), faster file
system checking, multi-block allocation, and improved timestamps.
File System

20. File System

21. The Linux security module is closely tied to UNIX security mechanisms.
Security concerns can be classified into two groups:
Authentication (Ensuring that only authorized individuals have access to files that they
are authorized.)
Access control (mechanism for validating whether a user has the right to access a
particular object and preventing unauthorized access as necessary). [1]
Historically Linux suffered from the same security vulnerabilities (such as eight character
passwords) as UNIX. However, a newer security mechanism known as the Pluggable
authentication Module (PAM) system based on shared libraries is now available to Linux
users. [1]
Security

22. Every object in a UNIX system under user and group access control has a single UID and
GID associated with it. User processes have a single UID but may have more than one
GID.
Linux performs access control by assigning objects a protection mask that specifies which
access modes (read, write, or execute) can be granted to the user. The only exception is
the root UID which is granted automatic access to any object in the system.
Linux allows use of the setuid command to run programs with different user privledges
(for example lpr has access to the print queue even if the user does not).
This can be useful but can also pose security concerns for the operating system.
Security

23. Brute-force (password guessing) attacks are the most common form of attack on any
operating system. In Linux, the most common types of services that can be brute-force
attacked are: [4]
• Telnet
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
• The “r” commands (rlogin, rsh, and so on)
• Secure Shell (ssh)
• SNMP community names
• Post Office Protocol (POP) and Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
• Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP/HTTPS)
• Concurrent Version System (CVS) and Subversion (SVN)
Hacking

24. Hydra is one of the most popular and versatile brute force utilities available. However
pop.c and SNMPbrute are also popular and can be downloaded at the following
locations: [4]
http://freeworld.thc.org/thc-hydra/
http://packetstormsecurity.org/groups/ADM/ADM-pop.c
http://packetstormsecurity.org/Crackers/snmpbrute-
THC – Hydra
pop.c
SNMPbrute
fixedup.c
Hacking

25. Hacking
Secure Remote Password
OpenSSH
pam_passwdqc
pam_lockout
According to Hacking Exposed 6: Network Secrets & Solutions [4] there are some
freeware tools that can help prevent brute force attacks. For brevity I will not list the
download locations (use Google search). These tools listed in the book follow:
cracklib Password composition tool.
npasswd A replacement for the passwd command.
A new mechanism for performing secure password
based authentication and key exchange over any type
of network.
A telnet/ftp/rsh/login communication replacement
with encryption and RSA authentication.
PAM module for password strength checking.
PAM module for account lockout.

26. Linux supports the entire standard internet protocols
used for most UNIX to UNIX communications as well as
many of the protocols native to non-UNIX operating
systems.
Internally, networking in the Linux kernel is
implemented in three layers of software: The socket
interface, protocol drivers, and network-device drivers.
The most important set of protocols in Linux is the
TCP/IP protocol suite containing (IP, UDP, TCP, and ICMP)
protocols.
Linux also performs firewall management of IP traffic.
Networking

27. Networking

28. A comparison of operating system robustness was
completed for the 19th International Symposium on
Software Reliability Engineering by Shanghai Jiao Tong
University [8].
They observe that Windows XP achieves better
robustness performance than Ubuntu in their
experiment.
Ubuntu had higher restart and abort rates than
Windows OSs in general robustness test.
In particular, the robustness of Ubuntu rose drastically
from 85.70% to 97.24% in CINT (surpassing Windows
Vista in this generic compute intensive operational
profile) and 97.37% in CFP.” [8]
Robustness

29. Robustness

30. Ubuntu 10.10 uses the GNU Network Object Model
Environment (GNOME) graphical user interface. It has
the look and appeal of Windows Vista without many of
the problems.
It also uses a command line interface.
Interface

31. Basic Commands
Some Important Directories Found in Ubuntu
Directory Description
/bin Frequentlyused system binaries
/dev Special drivers for I/O devices
/etc Miscellaneous system administration parameters
/lib Frequentlyused libraries
/tmp Temporaryfiles once stored here
/usr Contains all user files in this part of the tree
/usr/include System-provided header files
/usr/man On-line manuals
/usr/spool Spooling directories for printers, e-mail, and other daemons

32. Basic Commands
Some Popular Utility Programs Found in Ubuntu
Command Description
awk A pattern matching language
basename Strip off prefixes or suffixes from a file name
cat Link file(s) and write them to standard output
cc Compile a C program
chmod Change protection mode for file(s)
comm. Print lines common to two sorted files
cp Make a copy of a file
cut Make each column in a document into a separate file
date Print the date and time
diff Print all the differences between two files
echo Print the arguments (used mostly in shell scripts)
find Find all the files meeting a given condition
grep Search file(s) for lines containing a given pattern
head Print the first few lines of file(s)
kill Send a signal to a process
lp Print a file on a printer
ls List files and directories
make Recompile those parts of a large program that have changed
mkdir Make a directory
mv Rename a file or move file(s)
paste Combine multiple files as columns in a single file
pwd Print the working directory
rm Remove file(s)
rmdir Remove one or more directory
sed A stream (i.e., noninteractive) editor
sty Set terminal options such as the characters for line editing
sort Sort a file consisting of ASCII lines
tail Print the last few lines of a file
tr Translate character codes
uniq Delete consecutive identical lines in a file
wc Count characters, words, and lines in a file

33. Most Linux systems use two boot loaders, the Linux Loader (LILO) or Grand Unified Boot
Loader (GRUB). Ubuntu uses GRUB. The boot loader controls your boot image and
determines what kernel is booted when the system is started or rebooted. [3]
Both boot loaders are insecure if a hacker has physical system access and
Turnbull recommends that users only keep the current and previous versions of the
kernel.
Both boot loaders can easily be secured with passwords. To accomplish this
Ubuntu’s GRUB do the following: *3+
superman# grub
grub> md5crypt
Password: ********
Encrypted: $1$2FXKzQ0$I6k7iy22wB27CrkzdVPe70
grub> quit
Now copy the encrypted output and add the password to your grub.conf configuration
file. You can also add the --md5 option prior to the password in grub.conf to ensure
interaction with GRUB can only occur when you type p and enter the required password.
System Hardening

34. Most Linux systems use two boot loaders, the Linux Loader (LILO) or Grand Unified Boot
Loader (GRUB). Ubuntu uses GRUB. The boot loader controls your boot image and
determines what kernel is booted when the system is started or rebooted. [3]
Both boot loaders are insecure if a hacker has physical system access and
Turnbull recommends that users only keep the current and previous versions of the
kernel.
Both boot loaders can easily be secured with passwords. To accomplish this
Ubuntu’s GRUB do the following: *3+
superman# grub
grub> md5crypt
Password: ********
Encrypted: $1$2FXKzQ0$I6k7iy22wB27CrkzdVPe70
grub> quit
Now copy the encrypted output and add the password to your grub.conf configuration
file. You can also add the --md5 option prior to the password in grub.conf to ensure
interaction with GRUB can only occur when you type p and enter the required password.
System Hardening

35. There are also several services that may start at boot, of which many can pose as security
risks. Turnbull [3] recommends disabling the following:
anacron, apmd, atd, autofs, cups, gpm, irda (unless used), isdn (unless used), kudzu, lpd,
netfs, nfs, nfslock, pcmcia, portmap, rawdevices, rhnsd, snmpd, snmtptrap,winbind, xfs,
ypbind.
Delete the following user accounts:
adm, desktop, ftp, games, gdm, gnats, gopher, identd, irc, list (if not using
mailman), lp & lpd (if no printing) mailnull (if no Sendmail), news, nfsnobody, nscd,
operator, postgres (if no Postgres), proxy, rpc, rpcuser, sync, telnetd, uucp, www-data (if
not Web server).
Delete the following group accounts:
lp, news, uucp, proxy, postgres, www-data, backup, operator, list, irc, src, gnats,
staff, games, users, telnetd, gdm, telnetd, gopher, ftp, nscd, rpc, rpcuser, nfsnobody, xfs,
desktop
System Hardening

36. Summary
This briefing looked into the history and features of the Ubuntu Operating system as well
as exploring the mechanics that make the Ubuntu operating system unique.
This briefing further dug deep into:
Design principles (specifically the Kernel, System libraries, and System utilities)
Process management (process context includes: scheduling context, accounting, file
table, signal-handler table, and virtual memory context)
Memory management (physical memory zones, allocation of memory using pages, and
memory mapped to the address space)
Process communication (signaling, use of semaphores, piping, and shared-memory)
Deadlock handling (no detection for applications or threads by the Linux kernel, uses
locks for prevention)
File system (VFS, inodes, file objects, superblocks, dentry objects, extfs, and ext4)
Security (authentication and access control)
Networking (socket interface, protocol drivers, and network-device drivers)
Program interface (Gnome GUI, and applications)
And more.. (Hardening, Robustness, Common Commands, etc..)

37. Questions?