packages - 2

I created a Debian package of advchk, a tool for monitoring the security of installed software. Advisory Check gathers security advisories using RSS / RDF / XML feeds, compares them against a list of known software, and alerts you if you`re vulnerable. As usual the Debian package is available via the grml-testing pool.

I packagedincron, an inotify cron system. As usual the debian package is available in the grml-testing repository.

Today I finished work on packaginggatling, a high performance web server. Get the Debian package from the grml testing repository.

Just to keep developers and beta-testers informed (assuming that you don't follow my hg commits [time for a hg-commit mailinglist, yes]): today I spent several hours in reducing the todo list for grml 0.9. So make sure you have recent packages on your brand new develrelease (run 'apt-get update; apt-get install $PACKAGES') when trying out. Quoting some important stuff of the changelogs:

grml2hd: adjust /etc/default/rcS according to bootoption utc/gmt
              and /etc/localtime according to bootoption tz

grml-autoconfig:
              * deprecate CONFIG_KERNEL, CONFIG_LANGUAGE,
                CONFIG_DMA and CONFIG_MIXER as they are not really
                relevant on hd installations.
              * do *not* use swap by default anymore, thanks for feedback
                 goes to Wolfgang Karall!

grml-terminalserver: a maintenance release to fix some outstanding issues:
             * big update of linuxrc - do not use discover anymore (broken)
                but instead try modprobing all available network modules
             * reject tcp/113 via iptables to speed up PXE boot

I consider the current state as pretty stable, in the next few days I'll do some more regression testing so hopefully we'll have a first release-candidate of grml 0.9 soon...

aamath is a program that reads mathematical expressions in infix notation and renders them as ASCII art. It may be useful to send mathematics through text-only media, such as e-mail or newsgroups.

The Debian package is - as usual - available from the grml repository. Thanks for pointing to aamath on the grml-user mailinglist, Mark!

I assume you already know debootstrap. Quoting the package description "debootstrap is used to create a Debian base system from scratch, without requiring the availability of dpkg or apt. It does this by downloading .deb files from a mirror site, and carefully unpacking them into a directory which can eventually be chrooted into." I already described the procedure for installing Debian sarge and etch via grml in my private blog.

I usually install plain Debian systems via debootstrap, because it's simple, fast and just works. Especially because grml provides recent hardware detection I can often install Debian on systems where the official debian installer might not work at all. But running debootstrap is a boring task, especially if you often do this kind of installation the tasks during installation are boring. Therefore I decided to write a wrapper around debootstrap, and there we are:

% apt-cache show grml-debootstrap
 Description: wrapper around debootstrap for installing plain Debian via grml
  This package provides a wrapper suite around deboostrap and
  cdebootstrap for installing a plain Debian system via grml.
  .
  All you have to do is adjust a few variables in configuration
  file /etc/debootstrap/config and invoke grml-debootstrap then.
  A plain and base Debian system will be installed on the given
  device then. Customization of this process is possible as well.

Installation of a plain and base Debian etch system is pretty fast and easy this way. The first public version of grml-debootstrap is available in the grml repository. Just apt-get it when running the grml live-cd. As usual: feedback is welcome.

grml2hd has a new feature: starting with version 0.8.12 it's possible to customize grml2hd's execution via a configuration file named /etc/grml2hd/customization. Using this feature you can toggle which functions of grml2hd should be executed when running grml2hd.

Today I packaged ssdeep (detect similarities between files based on hash values), ptfinder (extract process information from a Windows memory dump) and afflib (utils for the Advanced Forensic Format [aff]).

I'm working on quality management those days. Today I checked 284 (a*-dillo) out of 2470 packages shipped with grml for new upstream releases and got 13 hits which I reported to Debian's BTS of course. I'll continue with this (awful boring) kind of work in the next days...

The ATI fglrx-driver version 8.29.6 for 2.6.17-grml is available in the grml-repository. Just run 'apt-get update ; apt-get install fglrx-driver fglrx-kernel-2.6.17-grml' to update/install it.

I packaged smap (nmap like SIP scanner) and iwatch (a realtime filesystem monitoring program). Both programs are worth a try - as usual get the Debian package from the grml-repository.

A grml netboot package for grml 0.8 is available for Booting grml without grml-terminalserver. Credits go to Stefan Himpich, thanks!

Today I packaged magicrescue (undelete utility and recover files from corrupted drives). As usual you can get it from the grml-repository.

I just packaged dwm (dynamic, small, fast and simple window manager for X11). As usual you can get it from the grml repository.

Currently I'm working on language support within grml2hd so you can easily select your prefered language and keyboard settings via grml-setlang and grml-setkeyboard. Works fine so far, we just have to do some more testing.

Jimmy wrote a partition selector for grml2hd which should make live easier for grml2hd-newbies. :-)

I slightly improved some configuration files and scripts. An absolutely great feature has been integrated: osd_server.py by Ulrich Dangel, Rico Schiekel and Alexander Bernauer. Special thanks to Ulrich 'schula' Dangel for his work in #grml. osd_server.py allows you to be notified about remote stuff via On Screen Display when running X. Expect to find a hint for setup in grml-tips(1) soon.

Another feature waiting for being published: grml-policy-rc.d, to avoid automatical startup of init scripts via invoke-rc.d. More details will be available in its manpage as soon as we consider it working and stable.

And I'm still working on the patchset for 2.6.17-grml. I'm waiting for the next stable release (should be available on 19th of july) before providing a final build of 2.6.17-grml.

We will have a grml-develmeeting today (tuesday) where we will talk about grml 0.8. We have some release-stoppers left and try to reduce todo-list within the next few days so we can release grml 0.8 at beginning of august. Stay tuned...