Überhacker II, Chapter 3: How to Get Many
Operating Systems on One PC, continued ...
File Systems
If you want file-sharing security under Windows NT, 2000 or XP,
you must format the partitions it uses with NTFS (New Technology
File System). For file-sharing security under Windows 98, 98SE
or ME, you need a Fat 32 file system. Sadly, Windows 98 can't
see NTFS unless you get a third party program, and NT can't see
Fat 32. Neither can see Linux's file systems, but Linux can see
them all. That's just one more reason Linux makes an outstanding
attack computer. Watch out for trying to write to NTFS from Linux,
as the programs out there at this writing are buggy.
The Expensive but Easy Way
OK, let's say you have some virus-free hard drives that are compatible
with your BIOS. There is an easy but somewhat expensive way to
get around the problem of many operating systems doing battle
with each other on a single hard drive.
If you have a BIOS that lets you pick which drive to boot, use
one hard drive per operating system. That can get you five operating
systems: one for each IDE drive and one for a SCSI drive.
For even more flexibility and more operating systems, get one
hard drive for each and set all of them to be the master. Install
a bay for removable hard drives. Put each drive in a removable
tray that fits the bay. Attach the bay to the end connector on
the primary IDE cable - the same connector that was on the hard
drive before you started messing with the insides of your box.
What if you want to keep all your exploits or other data on a
hard drive that will be shared among many operating system? Install
your data disk as slave. Then, for Linux and other Unix-type operating
systems, you have to "mount" the drive under its file
system. For example, you could mount it under /mnt; or set up
any arbitrary designation. Many Linux installation disks allow
you to mount the data drive during installation from a point-and-click
partitioning menu. Linux is pretty good at reading and writing
Fat 32, so that might be a solution if you want Windows to also
be able to access it.
All my PCs have removable drive bays. But I want more, more!
So I also make double and triple boot hard drives - also in removable
trays. This makes it even easier to reconfigure my hacker lab
into almost any network configuration.
The System Commander/Partition Commander
Way
If you have one really large hard drive, there is one set of
tools that will let you install as many operating systems as you
can fit and boot them from anywhere on that drive. Use Partition
Commander to set up the partitions, and System Commander to boot
your choice. See http://www.linguistsoftware.com/syscom.htm
to buy these programs. This enables more than 100 operating systems
to share the same disk. The only limitation is that a total of
only 4 installations of Windows XP, 2000, NT, ME, 98 or 95 may
be installed on a hard drive. This is because each one needs a
primary partition, and you can create only four primary partitions
per hard drive.
The SuSE Solution for Linux Plus Windows
XP and 2000 all on the Same Drive
Both SuSE Personal and Professional come with automatic ability
to other Windows operating systems, as long as you have installed
them first and they are on the same hard drive. Windows NT and
2000 are also helpful because if you install one as the second
operating system, if the first one is NT, 2000 or XP, it will
automatically set up a dual boot menu.
Here's how to take advantage of this.
1) Start with Windows XP on a hard drive of at least 10 GB.
2) Install Partition Magic. You could use defrag followed by the
Linux or Windows fdisk program instead, or Windows NT/2000 Disk
Administrator. They will work just as well, but with greater risk
of error, and would take a lot more words to describe.
3) Set up the following partitions of about equal size (unless
you happen to love one of these operating systems more than another).
· Shrink the partition with your operating system to about
one third the total size of the drive, or if this isn't possible,
reduce it so it has about a quarter of its space still free. You'll
need about 6 GB left over.
· Set up a second primary partition and format it with
NTFS.
· Create an extended partition.
· Inside the extended partition, create two logical partitions.
Set up a Linux Swap partition equal in size to the RAM of your
PC, or 100MB, whichever is larger; and format the rest as Linux
Ext3.
4) Install Windows NT or 2000 on the second primary partition.
Make sure the dual boot feature works.
5) Install SuSE on what remains. Reboot and you should get a SuSE
menu that works for all three.
How to Make a Triple Boot Disk the Harder
Way
Here's how to get a triple boot hard drive, with both Windows
and Linuxes, to work every time.
1) Start with a hard drive of at least 8 GB running Windows 98,
SE or ME; Windows NT workstation, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows
XP Personal or Professional. On any of these you can install Partition
Magic (from http://powerquest.com).
2) Install Partition Magic. You could use defrag followed by the
Linux or Windows fdisk program instead, or Windows NT/2000 Disk
Administrator. They will work just as well, but with greater risk
of error, and would take a lot more words to describe.
3) Get installation disks for another Windows operating system
and a Linux installation CD (or CDs or DVD). In my opinion the
Linuxes most suitable for serious hacking are SuSE Professional
(http://www.suse.de)
and Debian (http://www.debian.org).
If you try to download Linux from the Internet, you will get exactly
what you paid for.
4) Use Partition Magic to set up the following partitions of about
equal size (unless you happen to love one of these operating systems
more than another):
5) Shrink the partition with your operating system to about one
third the total size of the drive, or if this isn't possible,
reduce it so it has about a quarter of its space still free. You'll
need about 6 GB left over.
6) Set up a second primary partition and format it with NTFS.
7) Create an extended partition.
8) Inside the extended partition, create two logical partitions.
Set up a Linux Swap partition equal in size to the RAM of your
PC, or 100MB, whichever is larger; and format the rest as Linux
Ext3.
9) Partition Magic will perform all these tasks. When it finishes
and reboots, install Boot Magic and activate it. It will, of course,
only have one operating system as a boot choice. This is OK. All
you want is for Boot Magic to be controlling the master boot record
(MBR)
10) Then reboot from the CD of the version of Windows NT, 2000,
2003 or XP that you want to be your second version. Ideally this
should be a Server version, as they can do things personal or
professional editions can't do - things useful for breaking into
Windows computers. Install it on the second primary partition.
When you get to the part of installation where it must reboot,
take out the CD-ROM and use Boot Magic to boot into your first
operating system. Use it to configure a dual boot system with
your second Windows. Reboot.
11) Now pick your second operating system from the Boot Magic
startup menu and finish installing your second Windows.
12) Next boot from the Linux CD-ROM and install it in the extended
partition. You can put it all on that ext3 partition or repartition
within the extended partition and format them per your taste.
Detailed instructions on how to install a Linux attack computer
with recommended partitioning and file system options are in the
next chapter.
13) If you are using a recent version of SuSE, let it do its thing
and it will automatically configure a triple boot system for you.
For other versions of Linux, if the installation program prompts
you for how to boot Linux, chose lilo. If the installation program
doesn't prompt for boot options, look for an "expert"
menu that allows this. When you configure lilo, be careful to
specify that it should boot from /, or, if you have created it,
/boot. To get it to boot Windows add this to /etc/lilo.conf:
other=/dev/hda1
label=Windows
This presumes that Windows was on the first partition of your
primary master hard drive (hda1).
14) Reboot. If you installed SuSE, it will offer a menu with options
to boot into all three operating systems. Choose the Windows option.
15) If you specified Linux to boot into / or /boot, you will get
the Boot Magic menu. Choose the first operating system. Use Boot
Magic configuration to add Linux to the menu.
16) Reboot and choose Linux. Voila! You have succeeded!
17) Oops! You goofed (er, my instructions didn't work.) If anything
goes wrong, it may be because your system has trouble booting
from a position too far down on the hard drive. If this happens,
try System Commander to boot your operating systems.
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