Hacking Knoppix

Scott Granneman

WILEY

Published by
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© 2006 Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN 13: 978-0-7645-9784-8

0-7645-9784-1

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Granneman, Scott.
Hacking Knoppix / Scott Granneman.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 13: 978-0-7645-9784-8 (paper/cd-rom)
ISBN 10: 0-7645-9784-1 (paper/cd-rom)
1. Linux. 2. Knoppix (Computer file) 3. Operating systems (Computers) I. Title. QA76.76.O63G7229 2005
005.4′32-dc22

2005029725

Trademarks: Wiley and the Wiley logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. ExtremeTech and the ExtremeTech logo are trademarks of Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings, Inc. Used under license. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

About the Author

Scott Granneman is an author, educator, and consultant. Scott's book on the Firefox web browser, Don't Click on the Blue E!: Switching to Firefox, has garnered wide praise. In addition, he is a monthly columnist for SecurityFocus and for Linux Magazine, and he blogs professionally on the Open Source Weblog. He is currently an adjunct professor at Washington University in St. Louis, where he teaches a variety of courses about technology, social software, and the Internet. Finally, as a co-owner of WebSanity, Scott helps nonprofits and businesses use the company's Content Management System to take full advantage of the Web's communication, sales, and service opportunities. He's been using Linux for a decade, and swears by it.

Credits

Executive Editor
Carol Long

Acquisitions Editor
Debra Williams Cauley

Development Editor
Maryann Steinhart

Technical Editors
Robert Citek Jason Luster

Production Editor
William A. Barton

Project Coordinator
Michael Kruzil

Copy Editor
Luann Rouff

Editorial Manager
Mary Beth Wakefield

Production Manager
Tim Tate

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher
Richard Swadley

Vice President and Publisher
Joseph B. Wikert

Graphics and Production Specialists
Lauren Goddard
Stephanie D. Jumper
Barbara Moore
Melanee Prendergast

Quality Control Technicians
John Greenough
Leeann Harney
Jessica Kramer

Media Project Supervisor
Laura Moss

Media Development Specialist
Angela Denny
Kit Malone
Travis Silvers

Proofreading and Indexing
TECHBOOKS Production Services

Cover Design
Anthony Bunyan

Acknowledgments

Hacking Knoppix has truly been a team effort, and there are a lot of folks to recognize. In particular, I want to acknowledge the hard work, energy, and flat-out brilliance displayed by Klaus Knopper and all of the other hackers, programmers, developers, and users who have contributed in a thousand different ways to the growth of one of the coolest and most innovative technologies available today: Knoppix.

This book couldn't have been written without the help and support of many important individuals. My agent, Laura Lewin, has been helpful in too many ways for me to recount. My main editor at Wiley, Debra Williams Cauley, shepherded this work effectively, efficiently, and with great care and humanity. Thanks, Debra! My technical editor and guru, and all-around great human being, Robert Citek, continues to teach me a tremendous amount about Linux and open source. Jerry Bryan has looked over everything I've written in the last several years and helps make things shine. My wife, Denise, supported me completely during her own tough times and has always given me an example to follow. Finally, my cute little Shih Tzu, Libby, was a boon companion at all times and deserves almost constant belly rubs.

Paul Love, Josh Myer, and Robert Citrek contributed chapters to this book:

Paul Love—CISSP, CISA, CISM, Security+—has been in the IT field for 15 years and is currently a security manager at a financial institution. Paul holds a master of science degree in network security and a bachelor's degree in information systems. He was the lead author of Beginning Unix, has co-authored two Linux security books, contributed to multiple Linux/ Unix books, and has been the technical editor for more than 10 best-selling Linux and Unix books.

Josh Myer is Linux Administrator for ibiblio at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He's proficient in multiple programming languages and works in Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, SCO Unix, and SCO Xenix operating systems. He has designed in GCC and GNU Make, Microsoft Visual Studio, and Apple development environments, and his experience includes systems administration, clustering, and networking.

Robert Citek has a master of science degree microbiology from the University of California at Riverside, and currently works for Orion Genomics as a bioinformaticist exploring various plant and animal genomes using a number of open-source software tools, including Knoppix. He has worked with Unix since the mid-eighties, and with GNU/Linux since the mid-nineties, both as a hobbyist and as a computational biologist. You can find him on the Knoppix forums at http://knoppix.net.

Alex de Landgraaf, John A. Goebel, and Benjamin Mako Hill also contributed to the writing of this book.