Uptate nmap on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron

  Recently on Pauldotcom Security Weekly, they had an interview with Gordon “Fyodor” Lyon from insecure.org. Before the podcast I could not find a way to upgrade nmap to the latest version on Ubuntu. I had tried several times to compile from source but nmap would not create all of the proper files. I could run

nmap -V

and nmap would still show the stale version from the ubuntu repositories. After listening to the Pauldotcom episode I checked out the insecure.org site and found out how to install the latest version using subversion.

  This procedure requires that you install subversion

sudo apt-get install subversion

  Next you can just type this in a terminal

svn co --username guest --password "" svn://svn.insecure.org/nmap/

  This will pull down the latest source and put it in a folder called nmap. If you want to update the directory later you can just cd into that folder and type "svn up". Next you can cd into the nmap directory and type

./configure 

  Next you can type

make

and finally

sudo make install

  Once the compiling is done you have the latest copy of nmap and you can start "mapping" away.

  I have taken the time to write a script to do the same as I have just explained. This way if there is a new version of nmap you can just give the script a small, easy to remember name and run it whenever you want to make sure you have the latest version of nmap.

#! /bin/bash

svn co --username guest --password "" svn://svn.insecure.org/nmap/ &&
cd nmap &&
svn up &&
./configure &&
make &&
sudo make install &&
nmap -V &&
echo 'done'

Enjoy!!!

Update.

  I have had trouble with compiling after doing an "svn up" from the previous version.

  I have added a line to the script that will test for the old nmap folder and if it is there, it will delete it and start fresh.

gpg Error from the launchpad repositories when running apt-get update or synaptic

  Recently I started to get some errors when trying to update my system.  I received the error

W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net intrepid Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because
the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 28A8205077558DD0

  So, I wrote a script to download and apply the keys. Just highlight and copy the number following the "NO_PUBKEY".

  Download my script and make it executable.

chmod +x update-gpg-keys

  Then run my script and pass the key number to the script like so

./update-gpg-keys 28A8205077558DD0

  Now you can run apt-get update or run synaptic without errors.

Ati Radeon HD fanspeed control in Ubuntu

Recently I had the pleasure of buying an ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics card. It seems to be a decent card but the fan is a straight blade type and creates a lot of noise in my home theatre case.

   I was quite annoyed by this and after several hours of searching for an answer, all I could come up with was a bunch of commands to manually set the speed of the fan. This was a bit of an issure due to the fact that I would be using a remote control to set the fan speed.

  So I created a script that could be run with a dialogue box to set the fan to the desired speed. It works great for me and hopefully it will help you too. I would recommend placing the script in your ~/bin directory as I covered in a previous post (here).

  Once the script is in the ~/bin directory make it executable by opening up a terminal and typing

chmod +x ~/bin/fanspeed

  Now you cand right click on an empty space on your desktop and select "Create Launcher"

  Chose your settings as I have in the screenshot.

  The only thing that this requires is that you have set up the proprietary ATI driver and have it running prior to running this script.

  Now you can double click on the icon on your desktop or you can create a custom launcher for your gnome panel.

  Select the fan speed that you desire. and you should be all set. This script does not tell you the current temperature of your ati card but I may include that in a future release. Or if you would like to add it yourself, just post the code here in the comments section and I will include it in the file.

  When you launch the script you should see a box that looks like this one.

  I found that my card ran well at 33% even after running full screen video after half an hour. It seemed to keep my cards temp aroung 50 degrees.

  Your results may vary depending on your case ventelation and several other things. Try running this command to find out what the actual temperature of your card is.

aticonfig --adapter=0 --od-gettemperature

  I would recommend setting your fan speed to an acceptable noise level and then run some fullscreen video for a while and check the temp to see if this will work for you. If you would like to play with other fan speeds feel free to change the script as you need.

  I can't warn you enough. Do not set the speed below 20%. I tried this and the card temp rose VERY quickly. That is why the lowest number in the script is 20%.

  As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.