Intel New System On A Chip Designs

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 - by Marco Chiappetta

Gadi Singer, Vice President of Intel’s Mobility Group, and Doug Davis, Vice President of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group, held a conference call today to discuss a brand new product line from Intel targeted at security, storage, communications, and industrial applications, the Intel EP80579 Integrated Processor family.

Although the Intel EP80579 branding will be new to most of you, the underlying technology is comprised of products that have a well established history at Intel. In fact, this line of products is based on the Pentium M processor core, as it has been in development for quite some time now. The Intel EP80579 Integrated Processor family, however, is more than just a new processor. The products actually consist of new System on a Chip designs that integrate a Pentium M core, with a Memory Controller Hub (MCH), I/O hub (ICH), and in some cases specialized security, TDM (Time Division Multiplexing for voice-over-IP apps), and data path acceleration engines, which have been dubbed Intel QuickAssist Technology.

Development was started on the Intel EP80579 Integrated Processor family to prepare the company for the impending onslaught of smart, Internet-connected devices and appliances predicted to arrive over the next few years. The Intel EP80579 product line puts Intel in a position to target several growth areas across Consumer Electronics (CE), Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) and other embedded markets. "We’re now able to deliver more highly integrated products ranging from industrial robotics and in-car infotainment systems to set-top boxes, MIDs and other devices. By designing more complex systems onto smaller chips, Intel will scale the performance, functionality and software compatibility of IA while controlling the overall power, cost and size requirements to better meet respective market needs,” said Gadi Singer.

In addition to lower-power characteristics and the smaller form factors enabled by the Intel EP80579's integrated design (in some cases, Intel claims they will lead to platforms that have a 45% smaller board footprint and 34% lower power dissipation), the main benefit of this product line is its native support of Intel Architecture (IA), aka x86. As we stated in our initial coverage of Intel's Atom processor, manufactures of today's smart phones, set top boxes, and MIDs, and software developers, must contend with incompatibilities between the many different platforms being used today. Should these devices all use IA, however, developing software for them would be much easier and application compatibility could be maintained across multiple devices. The slides above illustrate much of what we have outlined here and further explain Intel's strategy and direction.

The individual components within the Intel EP80579 SoCs communicate over an internal Front Side Bus that connects the Processor Core, MCH, and ICH. And Intel has also developed a high performance bus to connect the security, TDM, and data path acceleration engines to the I/O Complex. Please note, that only four of the initial eight products being announced today feature the Acceleration Services Unit and TDM interface represented in the block diagram above. Those features are what make up the Intel QuickAssist Technology, which isn't featured on every Intel EP80579 SoC.

Intel EP80579 Integrated Processor with Intel QuickAssist Technology*
Model	Core Speed	DDR2 (MHz)	Temperatures	L2 Cache	TDP
NU80579EB600C	600MHz	400/533/667	Commercial 0-70°C	256KB	13W
NU80579ED004C	1.066GHz	400/533/667/800	Industrial -40-85°C	256KB	20W
NU80579ED004CT	1.066GHz	400/533/667/800	Commercial 0-70°C	256KB	20W
NU80579ED009C	1.2GHz	400/533/667/800	Commercial 0-70°C	256KB	21W
* Includes security, TDM, and data path acceleration

Intel EP80579 Integrated Processor for Embedded Computing
Model	Core Speed	DDR2 (MHz)	Temperatures	L2 Cache	TDP
NU80579EZ600C	600MHz	400/533/667	Commercial 0-70°C	256KB	11.5W
NU80579EZ600CT	600MHz	400/533/667	Industrial -40-85°C	256KB	11.5W
NU80579EZ004C	1.066GHz	400/533/667/800	Commercial 0-70°C	256KB	18W
NU80579EZ009C	1.2GHz	400/533/667/800	Commercial 0-70°C	256KB	19W

The eight individual products that will initially make up the Intel EP80579 Integrated Processor family are listed in the charts above. As you can see the products will be offered in a range of speeds, power dissipation, and commercial / industrial temperature options.

In addition to the products Intel spoke about today, the company also disclosed that they have more than 15 SoC projects currently planned internally--many of which are built around the Atom core-- including the company’s first Consumer Electronics (CE) chip codenamed “Canmore”, which is scheduled for introduction later this year, and the second-generation “Sodaville” which should hit sometime in 2009. As we've mentioned in previous articles, Intel’s second-generation embedded product line is slated to arrive in 2009 as well, with the company's next-gen platform for Mobile Internet Devices code-named “Moorestown”.

Regardless of all of the codenames and announcements though, what all of this means to consumers is that Intel is obviously focused on securing design wins in virtually any type of device that connects to the Internet or runs software and we may not be too far off from pocket-sized MIDs that can run off the shelf OSes and applications, just like our desktop PCs.

Source: www.hothardware.com

How To Reset Linux Forgotten Root Password

1.0 Introduction

Suppose you have just taken over as a new system administrator from another person just before they left and they forgot to give you the root password. Now, let's say you have to install the latest version of PHP on the system so that the sales department's website works the way its supposed to. You have to get the website up yesterday, since you are losing money every minute it doesn't work. Or maybe you simply need to add another user to the system.

The above scenarios are just two possible cases when you might need to reset the root password on a system; there are hundreds of other possible cases when you might need to do this, but I am not going to list all of them. Most of us know what to do when something like this happens on a Windows machine, but not a lot of us know how to recover lost passwords from Linux machines. This document attempts to rectify this situation by telling you about the different options available to recover passwords from YOUR machines. (Don't use this to break into other people's systems as that would be stupid and will get you into big trouble if you are caught.)

1.1 Disclaimer

Use the information in this document at your own risk. I disavow any potential liability for the contents of this document. Use of the concepts, examples, and/or other content of this document is entirely at your own risk.

The information in this document should only be used to recover passwords from machines to which you have legal access. If you use this information to break into other people's systems, then I am not responsible for it and you deserve your fate when you are caught. So don't blame me.

You are strongly advised to make a backup of your system before performing any of the actions listed in this document.

1.2 Credits

In this version, I have the pleasure of acknowledging the following people without whose input this would have never seen the light of the day:

• The community at http://www.justlinux.com, for the really helpful debate about this topic in one of their threads.
• The creators and maintainers of the various Linux documentation sites using which I gathered this information.
• Matt Hoskins and Kevin Walsh, for getting me interested in Linux in the first place.
• My friends and family, for bearing with me when I was compiling this document.

1.3 Before you start

Before you attempt to change or replace the password of any machine, make sure you get permission from the management authorizing it, 'cause otherwise it can be mistaken as an attempt to hack into the machine, which is not good.

Secondly, create a backup of all important data before you do anything else, so if anything goes wrong you'll still have a copy of your data. If you didn't, and something went wrong, don't blame me. I tested most of this stuff on my system and it worked, but you are responsible for your system, not me, so don't blame me if something did go wrong.

2.1 Various Options available

There are various methods available for resetting a root password. In this section, I will list all the major ones, and we will go over each in detail later in the document. I will also go over some steps to prevent some other person from doing this and hacking your machine.

The various methods are:

• Boot into single-user mode (easiest, least risky)
• Boot using a boot disk and edit the password file
• Mount the drive on another computer and edit the password file

2.1.1 Reseting passwords by booting into single-user mode

This is the easiest and the fastest method to reset passwords. The steps are a little different depending on if you are using GRUB or LILO as a bootmanager.

Booting into single-user mode from LILO

Follow these steps to reset the password when using LILO:

• Reboot the system. When you see the LILO: prompt (see Fig. 1 below), type in linux singlelinux init=/bin/bash instead. and press 'Enter'. This will log you in as root in single-user mode. If your system requires you to enter your root password to log in, then try
• Once the system finishes booting, you will be logged in as root in single-user mode. Use passwd and choose a new password for root.
• Type reboot to reboot the system and then you can login with the new password you just selected.

Figure 1. Lilo Boot Menu

If you have a new version of LILO which gives you a menu selection of the various kernels available press Tab to get the LILO: prompt and then proceed as shown above.

Booting into single user mode from GRUB

Follow these steps to reset the password when using GRUB:

• Reboot the system, and when you are at the selection prompt (See Fig. 2 below), highlight the line for Linux and press 'e'. You may only have 2 seconds to do this, so be quick.
• This will take you to another screen where you should select the entry that begins with 'kernel' and press 'e' again.
• Append ' single' to the end of that line (without the quotes). Make sure that there is a space between what's there and 'single'. If your system requires you to enter your root password to log into single-user mode, then append init=/bin/bash after 'single'. Hit 'Enter' to save the changes.
• Press 'b' to boot into Single User Mode.
• Once the system finishes booting, you will be logged in as root. Use passwd and choose a new password for root.
• Type reboot to reboot the system, and you can login with the new password you just selected.

Fig. 2: GRUB Boot Screen

2.1.2 Reseting passwords by using a boot disk and editing the password file

This method is a little bit more complicated than the previous one and has a very high chance of success (assuming your filesystem is not encrypted and you didn't forget the password to decrypt it if it is). As before, get permission before you do this.

To start, you need a Linux boot disk or a rescue disk. (If you didn't create one when prompted during the installation then let this be a lesson for you.) You can use your installation CD as a rescue disk; most distros have an option to allow you to boot into rescue mode. With my Redhat Linux CD, I have to enter linux rescue to start the rescue mode. But this might be a bit different in each distro. You can also use a live linux CD like Knoppix or Gnoppix for system recovery. (Click here for a list of all the live Linux CD's). In this tutorial I will use Knoppix as my rescue CD but the process is almost the same for any rescue CD you might use.

[ You can also download one of the many single-floppy Linux distributions (e.g., Tom's RootBoot ), and use it to bring up the machine as described. This is, of course, much faster than downloading and burning a rescue CD, especially on a slow connection. -- Ben ]

Follow these steps to reset the password using Knoppix:

• Reboot the system and configure it to boot from the Knoppix CD (instructions available here)
• At the Knoppix Boot Prompt (See Fig. 3 below) enter: knoppix lang=us to start boot Knoppix using the english locale. If you understand German, feel free to just hit 'Enter' to boot into Knoppix.
• Once the system finishes booting, press + + (The Control, Alt and F1 key together) to switch to a virtual terminal.
• Type mkdir mountplace to create a directory called 'mountplace'. This is where we will mount the filesystem.
• Type mount /dev/hdaX mountplace, where /dev/hdaX is your root partition. More information on Linux partitions is available here.
• Change to the "/etc" directory on your root partition by typing cd mountplace/etc.
• Use your favorite text editor and open the 'shadow' file for editing. I use 'vi', so I type vi shadow (If you have a really old system, you won't have a shadow file, in which case you need to edit the 'passwd' file.)
• Scroll down to the line containing the root user's information, which looks something like:
  root:dsfDSDF!s:12581:0:99999:7:::
• Delete everything between the first and second colons, so that the line looks like:
  root::12581:0:99999:7:::
• Save the file and exit your editor.
• Type cd to return to your home directory.
• Type umount mountplace to unmount the partition.
• Type reboot to reboot your system, and remove the Knoppix CD from the drive.
• Now you can log into your system as root with no password. Make sure you change the password immediately.

Fig. 3: Knoppix Boot Screen

2.1.2 Reseting passwords by mounting on another system and editing the password file

This option is a bit more work than any of the earlier options but is almost sure to work (except when the filesystem is encrypted).

Follow these steps to reset the password:

• Shut down the machine after backing up all important data.
• Open the casing, unplug the hard drive, and take it to another machine. (This system should be running Linux, since Windows can't read the Linux partition formats.)
• Connect the hard disk as a slave drive and boot the new system.
• Once the system finishes booting, mount the slave drive's root partition as shown above and edit the password file.

3.1 How to Prevent someone else from reseting your root password

If you are an even slightly security-consious sysadmin, the previous sections must have set off alarms while you were reading them. Is it really that easy to hack Linux? Yes and No. It all it comes down to the following: Physical Access is Root Access. Meaning, if you give someone physical access to a system, then you are giving them a very good chance of getting root access on your box. This is true for Windows, Linux, or any other OS out there.

But... you say that you need to give some people physical access to the server? There are some precautions you can take to slow down attackers and stop the noob's. In this section I will talk about various ways you can make your computer more secure against these types of attacks. So lets get started.

3.1.1 Password protecting GRUB and LILO

First, edit the /etc/inittab file and insert the following line, right after the "initdefault" line: ~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin. This will require a password to boot into single-user mode by making init run 'sulogin' before dropping the machine to a root shell. 'sulogin' requires the user to input the root password before continuing.

Unfortunately, the above step won't protect us against people who know what they are doing and pass init=/bin/bash to the kernel at the LILO prompt. To prevent unauthorized access I would suggest that you password protect LILO/GRUB by following these steps:

How to Protect LILO:

• Open a shell prompt and log in as root
• Open /etc/lilo.conf in your favorite text editor
• Add the following line before the first image stanza: password= , where is your password.
• Run /sbin/lilo -v to let the changes take effect
• Type chmod 600 /etc/lilo.conf to give only root access to read and edit the file since all passwords are in plain text
• Relax a bit, as your system is a little bit more secure

How to password-protect GRUB

• Open a shell prompt and log in as root
• Type /sbin/grub-md5-crypt and press enter
• Enter the password you chose for GRUB when prompted. This will return an MD5 hash of your password
• Open /boot/grub/grub.conf in your favorite text editor
• Add password --md5 below the timeout in the main section (Replace with the hash you got in the previous step)
• Save and exit
• The next time you reboot, the GRUB menu will not let you access the editor or command interface without first pressing [p] followed by the GRUB password.

3.1.2 Password-protecting the BIOS

There are two primary reasons for password-protecting the BIOS of a computer:

• Prevent Changes To BIOS Settings: if an intruder has access to the BIOS, they can set it to boot off of a diskette or CD-ROM.
• Prevent Booting the System: Some BIOSes allow you to password protect the boot process itself. When activated, an attacker would be forced to enter a password for the BIOS to launch the boot loader.

Because the methods for setting a BIOS password vary between computer manufacturers, you should consult the manual for your computer. If you forget the BIOS password, it can often be reset either with jumpers on the motherboard or by disconnecting the CMOS battery. However, you should check the manual for your computer or motherboard before attempting this procedure.

By Suramya Tomar

Sudo Accessible Commands Report

The Linux sudo command allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or another user, as specified in the /etc/sudoers file.

To find out what are the commands granted, just execute the sudo -l command, which essentially output all commands granted into a single long line.

If there are only few commands granted, that is fine to read out what are the commands granted, or find out any possible typo errors of the command name maintained in the /etc/sudoers file.

However, if there are few ten of commands granted, it is not that easy to read the sudo -l output, which list all the granted commands in a single line.

Well, there are two solutions to this irritating problem.

1. Execute sudo -l | grep --color=auto tar command, which will highlight (in color) the matched keyword found in the single long line of commands granted.
   
   
2. Download the wsudo.sh scripts file, which will breakdown individual commands output by sudo -l into multiple lines. Just type wsudo.sh to get a formatted version of sudo -l report, or pipe the output to grep or sort command. For example, wsudo.sh | grep tar or wsudo.sh | sort.
   
   

The first attempt is always simple enough. To make it more simple, create a simple shell scripts containing these lines below, and keep this scripts file in any directory path reported by $PATH environment variable.

#!/bin/sh

sudo -l | grep --color=auto $1

Assuming this scripts file saved as wsudo file name, then to find out whether the tar command is granted, just type wsudo tar at command prompt.


Source:bloggerdigest.

How To Reset Windows Vista Account Password using Trinity RSK

Copyright © reserved by Walker

Today, I found another trick and tested it successfully on my own Windows Vista UltimateThe Trinity Rescue Kit or TRK! machine -
^{Trinity Rescue Kit is a tiny Linux distribution that used to repair or recover both Linux and Windows operating system, including the ability to reset a forgotten Windows Vista Administrator account password}

In fact, there is a proven video demo of using Trinity Rescue Kit to reset a forgotten Windows Vista administrator account password. Beside Windows Vista editions, the TRK is said works well to reset account password in Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003 too.

Cautions! It’s illegal (with most countries cyber laws, I think) to crack or reset another Windows logon account password that is not yours. The Trinity Rescue Kit is only a really good toolkit for those who want to reset a forgotten Administrator account password which is under his/her administration or ownership!

How to crack or reset a forgotten Windows Administrator account password with Trinity Rescue Kit in 3 minutes?

Download the latest Trinity Rescue Kit 3.2 Build 279 from the TRK official home page.

Make sure you’re downloading TRK ISO image file and validate its MD5 checksum with the published one (to confirm the ISO image is genuine and safe!)

Burn the TRK ISO image to a blank CD, which is less than 105MB in size.

Boot up Windows Vista machine with the Trinity Rescue Kit CD-ROM and wait for the tiny Linux loading completely to system memory.

Type winpass -u Administrator at the command prompt. To reset a Windows Vista Administrator account called Admin, just replace Administrator as Admin will do.

The winpass command will then displaying message that resemble these:

Searching and mounting all file system on local machine
Windows NT/2K/XP installation(s) found in:
1: /hda1/Windows
Make your choice or ‘q’ to quit [1]:

In this case, type 1 and press ENTER or just hit ENTER key to accept the default value, i.e. [1].

Next, it’s time to reset password of the specified Windows Vista account. The Trinity Rescue Kit suggests resetting it to a blank password that might work better than setting a new password! So, just type * (asterisk key) and hit the ENTER key to reset a blank or empty password for the specified Windows account.

Then, type Y and press ENTER key at the “Do you really wish to change it?” message prompt.

Now, type init 0 to shutdown the Trinity Rescue Kit Linux system, take out the CD-ROM and boot into Windows Vista Ultimate again.

This time, your Windows Vista should have automatically logged on with Administrator account without asking for a forgotten password!