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WINE, VMWARE, WIN4LIN, Security Question + Two Other Questions

C

corinthos

Golden Member
Question #1
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I'm trying to find information about whether or not using WINE, VMWARE, WIN4LIN, and the like will compromise the security of Linux in any way. Should users of such programs that run Windows apps be concerned about virii, security holes, and etc? Linux has equivalents for pretty much everything I used/needed under Windows XP, but there's a handful of Poker software I'd like to use that are unfortunately only available for Windows, so I'm looking at these emulator options until I can buy a laptop to install the Windows-based poker software on. If there's a way to secure a Linux box and allow you to use something like WINE or VMWARE with zero security compromises, then I'd like to learn how to do so and save the money on a laptop or second box.

Question #2
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Also, I'm a Linux n00b, so I'd like to learn more about the level of concern about virii one should have running a Linux box. Under Windows, people recommend running a virus scanning program and something like Adaware, so I was wondering if similar kinds of protective measures are recommended under Linux.


Question #3
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I spent alot of time reading docs, looking up answers, and playing around with Linux in an effort to get a working system with the capabilities I wanted up and running, so I'd like to use a Linux equivalent to Ghost/Acronis True Imager to burn a recovery disc so that if I want to experiment with other distributions (using Slack right now, but interested in trying Gentoo) and wish to get up and running again with my working system later on, all I'll have to do is pop in my disc and restore the image of my system back on the HDs.

Is there a free program that will do what I want and do it reliably? Here's my exact situation: I have 2 hard disk drives (HDE & HDG), on HDE I have hde1 (boot, /root), hde2, hde3 partitions, on HDG I have HDG1 and HDG2 (swap) partitions. If this is a pretty bare system still with most of the hard disks' capacities (360GB combined) yet to be filled (let's say the amount of data on all partitions and discs combined can fill 1 or 2 cd-r discs), am I able to do this imaging and fit a fully restorable system onto 1 or 2 cd-r discs?


Thanks in advance for your help guys.
 
Originally posted by: corinthos
Question #1
-----------------------
I'm trying to find information about whether or not using WINE, VMWARE, WIN4LIN, and the like will compromise the security of Linux in any way. Should users of such programs that run Windows apps be concerned about virii, security holes, and etc? Linux has equivalents for pretty much everything I used/needed under Windows XP, but there's a handful of Poker software I'd like to use that are unfortunately only available for Windows, so I'm looking at these emulator options until I can buy a laptop to install the Windows-based poker software on. If there's a way to secure a Linux box and allow you to use something like WINE or VMWARE with zero security compromises, then I'd like to learn how to do so and save the money on a laptop or second box.
Click to expand...

Not exactly sure. Wine operates the Windows-like environment seperate from normal Linux stuff. After running it it will create a few .directoryname directories in your user's home directory.

(In Linux when you put a . at the beginning of a file name it makes it 'hidden', which means that it's skipped over by normal utilities for simple convience sake.)

In one of those directories you'd notice a little windows-like directory were your programs get installed and stuff. All the windows apps know about is what happens in there. I don't think that they would possess the capability to break out of that and start messing with other parts of your system in a meaningfull way.

I've haven't heard about any vunerabilities like that or anything. Although if your using IE in Wine it's certain possible to get the wine directory infected... in which case you delete the directory and it's regenerated fresh next time you use it. Of course you'd have to reinstall all your windows apps.

Not dismissing the threat altogether though. If somebody specificly wrote a windows app to detect weither or not it's in Wine and try some sort of freakish exploit to break something, then I suppose it could be possible... but it's pretty damn unlikely. Microsoft has wrote some stuff that would detect if it was running in Wine or not and refuse to run, but that's about it.


Question #2
-----------------------
Also, I'm a Linux n00b, so I'd like to learn more about the level of concern about virii one should have running a Linux box. Under Windows, people recommend running a virus scanning program and something like Adaware, so I was wondering if similar kinds of protective measures are recommended under Linux.
Click to expand...

It's 'viruses'. Virii is (most likely) a plural version of Vir, which means 'man'. Not that I care a whole lot, virii is just annoying and sounds stupid when you say it outloud. 😛

No it's not recommended to use such software in Linux. Viruses are non-existant threat due to traditional Unix protections. Adware is currently non-existant.

That's not to say that software doesn't suffer from flaws. It's very important to keep everything up to date. Choose a distro that has a healthy package management system with lots of application support like Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, or Fedora.

Keeping up to date, and use GOOD passwords, are critical to keeping yourself safe in Linux. If your a Linux user then it increases the likelyhood that you get attacked many times. Due to the development software, remote administration, and server capabilities that all Linux systems have by default it makes them a usefull target for attackers.

Keep in mind that 9 times out of 10 SSH is installed and running by default on new Linux installs. This allows anybody to remotely log in to machine over the network and get full control over the machine if you let them. Good passwords is critical and keep close attention to who you allow access.

It's usefull to have anti-virus software for Linux aviable though. Excelent software such as ClamAV is aviable for free.. However this is mostly to protect Windows from itself. Rescue cds incorporate clamav and others to detect viruses for failing Windows installs, and if your running a email or file server then it is usefull to catch the stuff before it makes it to the clients. A Windows virus or worm can't generally affect Linux.

However using this software on a Linux system by default can actually increase your vunerabilities. It's extra software that you don't realy need and itself is often poorly written... there have been actually more vunerabilities in commercial virus scanners for Linux then there have been viruses.

This may change in the future if Linux gets more popular. But right now with each release security improves and as long as you do your part, such as keeping the system up to date and using good passwords, then you'll be safe.

For good password generation use a program called pwgen. It's aviable over apt-get for Ubuntu and Debian, but I am not sure about others.

I use it like this (depends on actual version):
pwgen -y1n 10 11

That will generate 11 good passwords with 10 characters each. The extra switches (the -y1n) part tells it to include at least one 'special' character (!@#$%^&*) etc and at least one number. They seem random, but are actually designed to be easy to remember. After typing it in 3 or 4 times it's usually enough to remember them.

For more details check out:
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/

It's a good place to start.

Question #3
------------------------
I spent alot of time reading docs, looking up answers, and playing around with Linux in an effort to get a working system with the capabilities I wanted up and running, so I'd like to use a Linux equivalent to Ghost/Acronis True Imager to burn a recovery disc so that if I want to experiment with other distributions (using Slack right now, but interested in trying Gentoo) and wish to get up and running again with my working system later on, all I'll have to do is pop in my disc and restore the image of my system back on the HDs.

Is there a free program that will do what I want and do it reliably? Here's my exact situation: I have 2 hard disk drives (HDE & HDG), on HDE I have hde1 (boot, /root), hde2, hde3 partitions, on HDG I have HDG1 and HDG2 (swap) partitions. If this is a pretty bare system still with most of the hard disks' capacities (360GB combined) yet to be filled (let's say the amount of data on all partitions and discs combined can fill 1 or 2 cd-r discs), am I able to do this imaging and fit a fully restorable system onto 1 or 2 cd-r discs?


Thanks in advance for your help guys.
Click to expand...

I usually don't worry about that sort of stuff.

What I do is have 2-3 seperate partitions that I use. One is /boot, the other is /, and the last is /home.

/home is for all my user files, obviously. That way I can reformat / and /boot and such without having to worry about loosing my settings or files.

for backups and restores, it's worth looking at 'tar'. You can simply boot up with a live cdrom like Knoppix and tar your entire OS up into one big tarball. Copy that to a safe place and then format and install something else. If you want to restore the old one then you format the file system and then untar the contents back into it.

Then what you need to do is reinstall or resetup your bootloader, which isn't to difficult.

But I don't think it's usually worth it. If you make lots of modifications to configuration files and such manually then just back up /etc/ and copy the choice files next time you reinstall.

Google around for tar examples and how to use netcat with that to copy easily and quickly over lan networks. Very handy.

Also there is a 'open source ghost' which a google will turn up if you want to go that way. It's called g4u.


Personally I say if you want to be serious just go with Debian. (In my personally very biased opinion.) If you want a server I like using Sarge (current stable) and if you want a desktop I like Sid (always unstable). Many people prefer Etch though (current testing, future stable)

There are good resources for it:
http://www.togaware.com/linux/survivor/
http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/
http://www.debian.org/doc/
http://www.debian.org/doc/

Also most of that applies to Ubuntu since it's a snapshot of Debian 'unstable' + bunches of modifications and updates to Gnome.

Gentoo is fine, but compiling gets annoying after a while, IMO.

But it's up to you. All of them have the same software, newest versions of everything have around the same versions of software and such. It's all open source they try to take the best ideas from each other and incorporate it into their distros. The difference is defualt configurations, politics, few tidbits, and package managers.
 
Jeez drag you gotta allow some of us a chance haha. j/k GREAT post. I just want to add this:

When using Windows applications on Linux you open the system up like you would in Windows, HOWEVER, the damage that can be done is still limited just like any non-root hack in and UNIX variant. If these applications do not need to access the network, then you are not opening yourself to problems at all. I would recommend VMware if you are really concerned as you can totally isolate the session from the network by not giving it a network interface. Win4lin (I haven't used it but as far as I know it would be similar to WINE) and WINE have access to the NIC by default.
 
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