Basic Hard Drive Tasks Using Linux

Erica’s Linux+ Study Guide (XK0-002)

Learn Unix in 10 Minutes file system, permissions, viewing files, tar, compression, vi

Linux Help Files library

Ultimate Linux Guide

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Introduction to Linux System Administration at TechTarget

Enterprise Linux learning guide library

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Security Blanket 3.0 from Trusted Computer Solutions
Using OS lock down scripts can be time consuming and error prone. Keeping those scripts up-to-date as new guidelines are published requires a continuous cycle of research, interpretation, and script revision. Security Blanket automates the process of locking down Linux and Solaris operating systems.

Fdisk a Drive

fdisk /dev/hd[x]

m	menu
n	new partition
p	primary
1	1 through 4
	first cylinder
	last cylinder
t	change partition
1	1 through 4
c	fat32 LBA
w	write partition section out

Format a Drive

mkdosfs -F 32 -n label /dev/hd[x]

-F 32	Fat32 file system
-n label	label the drive “label”
/dev/hd[x]	drive to format

Mount a Drive

mount -t vfat /dev/hd[x] /mnt/mpoint

vfat	FAT32
/dev/hd[x]	drive
/mnt/mpoint	mount point (must already exist)

Make a Forensically Sound Copy of a Drive

dcfldd

Wipe a Drive

Overwrite each sector on the drive with a zero. Use fdisk -l to determine the device names to use in place of sda.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

Alternate description:

time dcfldd pattern=00 of=/dev/hd[x] bs=64k

time dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hd[x] bs=64k

time	report how long the command will take
if	input file
of	output file
bs	block size
hd[x]	drive to wipe

Five things you didn’t know Bash could do on Linux

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Live Linux Distributions

Knoppix	accessible, easy-to-use
Linux Questions ISO list	many Linux distributions
See Digital Forensics Links	Many Digital Forensics and Incident Response bootable DVDs and CDs have been created
The LiveCD List	many more bootable CD/DVD operating systems

Basic Linux Commands at Google Code University

Lynis Security and system auditing tool to harden Linux systems (and more)