setuid File Permission in UNIX/Linux

In this post I am going to describe you about the 'setuid' in UNIX and Linux.

setuid or 'set user ID upon execution' and setgid or 'set group ID upon execution' are UNIX access right flags which are used to allow users to run an executable file with the permission of the executable file's owner or group. If the setuid is enabled for an executable file, the user executing the file will get permissions of the user or group that owns the executable file. This is very useful for allowing users on a computer system to run programs with temporarily elevated privileges for performing a particular task. 

These programs are needed for performing some tasks like 'ping' from an unprivileged user. The ping executable in /usr/bin folder is set with setuid bit on and consider its owner is root. So that whenever the ping command is used it is executed with elevated privileges and hence all the unprivileged users can use the ping command unless they are explicitly blocked form using it via some other means. By this hope you got the concept of setuid. Please continue reading for knowing more about setting, listing and more about setuid. 

SSH login to remote servers without password.

Hello guys this time I give you a how-to for logging into a remote server/desktop without being prompted for password.

SSH or Secure Shell is a program that allows you to log into a remote machine over a network and execute commands. It also allows you to move files from one computer to another. All the communication including password transmission are highly encrypted. Hence it can be used to create a secure communication over insecure channels. It protects a network from attacks like DNS spoofing, IP spoofing and IP source routing. Thats the reason why the SSH has effectively replaced older remote log in protocols like rlogin, rsh, rcp, telnet etc.

While using SSH log in entire communication including password transmission is is encrypted. SSH uses 3DES, Blowfish, AES and arcfour as encryption algorithms. So it is virtually impossible for a hacker to eavesdrop your password. Here I will describe how to create a secure communication channel between two servers securely and enable password-less login between them. This would be quiet useful while using scripts for logging into remote machines and executing commands. You don't have to store the remote machine's password in the script and also it is quiet annoying to type in password every time you log in to the remote machine via SSH.

How to install Windows XP in an existing Linux machine.

Intro:
Installing Linux in an existing Windows Machine is not at all a big deal, rather it is quiet straight forward. You just have to leave some hard disk space for Linux and install it on the remaining hard disk space. The Linux boot loader is INTELLIGENT enough to identify that a Windows OS is already installed there and it will automatically adjust the boot loader "GRUB" for dual booting.

However our famous Windows operating systems are not that intelligent but clumsy and it will delete the whole boot loader "GRUB" completely. We will reinstall the GRUB and edit the /etc/grub/grub.conf file to correct it.

I want to go generalized and this how-to is applicable for any version of Linux using GRUB bootloader and windows os. However here I used Ubuntu 9.1 and Windows Server 2003 both 32 bit.