(11.24.09 – This post was edited to expand the discussion on the various files read by Bash for login and sub-shells — iceflatline)
This post will describe how to set up command line aliases in Free Software Foundation’s “Bourne Again Shell” (BASH) for reducing common input mistakes and improving efficiency at the terminal.
Let’s take the simple case of a command like ls –a, which prints a list of the current directory’s files, including the hidden ones. Let’s change that command to something perhaps more efficient:
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alias lsa='ls-a'
Nice. Now we need only to type lsa to get the same results. Not enough of an improvement over simply typing ls –a? Let’s take another example. Say we use something like the following command to routinely download a specific directory from a web site: wget -nH -r -l inf ftp://ftp.somewebsite.com/directory1/directory2/. Sure we could try to remember a string like this each time we need it and debug if mistakes are made, but let’s make it easier:
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alias getdir='wget -nH -r -l inf ftp://ftp.somewebsite.com/directory1/directory2/'
You get the idea; I’m sure you can think of other examples. The point here is that each of these aliases will start to add up after awhile to help save you time and reduce mistakes.
Now, let’s say we open up a terminal and enter a few aliases like ones above. What happens when we close and reopen the terminal? Unfortunately aliases entered like this won’t carry over to the next bash shell session. To accomplish that we need to set up something more permanent.
There are three files in your home directory that hold a special meaning to Bash, allowing you to set up your environment automatically when you log in, when you start another Bash shell, and when you log out. These files may or may not exist depending on the Linux distribution you’re using. If they’re missing, Bash defaults to /etc/profile. These files are:
.bash_profile: read by Bash when you log into the system
.bashrc: read by Bash when you start a sub-shell
.bash_logout: read by Bash when a login shell exits
Bash allows two replacements for .bash_profile: .bash_login and .profile. However, only one of these files is read when you log in. If .bash_profile isn’t there, Bash will look for .bash_login. If that file is missing, it will look for .profile. If you start a sub-shell (e,g, a new terminal or X windows), Bash will read commands from .bashrc. Most users, however, want to have the same commands run regardless of whether it is a login shell or a sub-shell. This is typically done by including a small script (similar to the one for .myaliases below) or the line source .bashrc within .bash_profile to execute .bashrc. All the commands, including aliases, are then placed in .bashrc.
Using a text editor you can add your own aliases directly to .bashrc or, in some cases, simply uncomment ones that the distribution may have added for you (Ubuntu for example does this). Another approach is to create your own file containing your aliases and then simply point to that file from within .bashrc. This might be handy if you want to easily carry your aliases from one system to another. To do this, first create the file:
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touch.myaliases
Now, open the file in your favorite editor and enter your aliases and save it. Here’s a list of the ones I often use:
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##Dynamic window resizing
shopt-scheckwinsize
## Custom prompts
#This one shows name@host and current directory
PS1="[\u@\h: \w]$ "
## Aliases
alias cls='clear'
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
alias lsa='ls -a --color=auto'
alias lsl='ls -a -l --color=auto'
alias lsi='ls -a -i --color=auto'
alias lsr='ls -R --color=auto'
Now, open .bashrc and add or uncomment the following script, making sure to modify the file name to match the file you created for your aliases; then save the file.
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if[-f~/.myaliases];then
.~/.myaliases
fi
Now reboot the system or simply issue the following command to have bash recognize the aliases:
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exec bash
That’s it. Your new aliases should be ready to go. You can get a list of your aliases at anytime using the command alias without any arguments, and you can temporarily “unalias” any alias you’ve set up with the command unalias aliasname. However, this will only last for as long as the shell session does. To permanently eliminate the alias you’ll need to delete it from your alias file.
But what if we want to have these aliases available when we log in or run a session as root, or another user? To do that we need to add our list of aliases to a file that is accessible to bash on a system-wide bases. In the case of a Fedora or a Fedora-based distribution, that file is most likely going to be /etc/bashrc, and the case of Ubuntu or other debian based distribution that file is likely to be /etc/bash.bashrc. Place your aliases at the end of those files and restart the system or use the command exec bash and they will be available regardless of which user you are.
(20130205 – This post has been amended to reflect the most recent version of LogMeIn Hamachi — iceflatline)
This post will describe how to set up a secure virtual private network (VPN) to your Ubuntu home server using the Linux version of LogMeIn Hamachi. Once configured, you’ll be able to use secure shell (SSH) to access and manage your server from anywhere outside of your home network without the need to forward ports or make any other configuration changes on your home network gateway/router.
LogMeIn Hamachi is a hosted VPN service that is capable of establishing secure LAN-like links between computers, even if they’re behind Network Address Translation (NAT) devices. You can use it to create secure virtual networks on demand, across public or private networks. In order for LogMeIn Hamachi to work, a “mediation server,” operated by the LogMeIn, is required. The mediation server stores machine nicknames, statically allocated IPv4 (IP) addresses in the 25.x.x.x range and the associated authentication token of the user. An overview, including protocol-level details of the security architecture employed by LogMeIn can be found at LogMeIn Hamachi.
LogMeIn Hamachi provides three network types for flexibility in meeting diverse use case scenarios. They differ mainly in network topology. LogMeIn Hamachi clients can be members of any network; however, depending on the network owner’s LogMeIn Hamachi subscription, networks have the following limitations:
Free subscription allows you to have five members in a network
Standard subscription allows you to have 32 members in a network
Premium subscription allows you to have 256 members in a network
Multi-network subscription or a LogMeIn Central subscription allows you to have 256 members in all your networks
Further information regarding the subscription types can be at LogMeIn Hamachi.
SSH is a open source program for logging into a remote machine and, in most cases, for executing commands on that machine. It provides secure encrypted communications between two untrusted hosts over an insecure network. X11 connections and arbitrary TCP/IP ports can also be forwarded over the secure channel. It is intended as a replacement for rlogin, rsh and rcp, and can be used to provide other applications with a secure communication channel. To use SSH, you will need to install an SSH client on the computer you connect from (most Linux distributions and Unix variations include an SSH client), and an SSH server on the computer you connect to. The most popular open source SSH client and server are maintained by the OpenSSH project.
The versions for the software used in this post were as follows:
LogMeIn Hamachi (Linux) v2.1.0.86-x64 (beta)
LogMeIn Hamachi (Windows) v2.1.0.284
OpenSSH Server v1:5.9p1-5ubuntu1
PuTTY v0.62
PuTTYgen v0.62
Ubuntu server v12.04 (x64)
So, let’s get started.
Installing the SSH Server
As you may recall, the OpenSSH server is an option you have the opportunity to select when you installed and setup your Ubuntu server. If you did not select that option, you’ll need to install the OpenSSH server manually:
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sudo apt-get install openssh-server
If the SSH server was already installed apt will let you know, otherwise the installation will proceed. When complete, the SSH server daemon will start automatically. To check to make sure it’s running, use the following command:
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ps-ax|grep sshd
Install and Configure LogMeIn Hamachi on the Ubuntu Server
The LogMeIn Hamachi Linux client comes as a single executable binary compiled for the platform of your choice. This binary includes the Hamachi daemon, the control application, and the setup utility. However, before we can successfully install LogMeIn Hamachi on our Ubuntu Server we must first install the Linux Standard Base (LSB). LSB is a standard Linux core system that some third-party applications written for Linux, like LogMeIn Hamachi, use for successful implementation across a variety of distributions:
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sudo apt-get install lsb
With that dependency out of the way, let’s download the 64-bit Linux version of LogMeIn Hamachi to our Ubuntu server.
Then install it:
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tar-zxvf logmein-hamachi-*
cd logmein-hamachi-*
sudo./install.sh
After LogMeIn Hamachi is installed it will start up as a background process (daemon) automatically. However, you can stop, start or restart the Hamachi daemon manually from the command line with the following commands:
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sudo/etc/init.d/logmein-hamachi stop
sudo/etc/init.d/logmein-hamachi start
sudo/etc/init.d/logmein-hamachi restart
When the Hamachi daemon is run for the first time it stays offline. Let’s bring it online:
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sudo hamachi login
You can change its status back to offline at any time using the following command:
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sudo hamachi logout
Note that the daemon remembers its state if the Ubuntu server it is shutdown or if shutdown using the sudo /etc/init.d/logmein-hamachi stop command. So if its state was online, it will automatically go online when started next time. If it was offline, it will stay offline.
Next, let’s create a nickname for our Ubuntu server so that we can identify it easily from a remote client machine:
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sudo hamachi set-nick<your_nickname>
Now, let’s create our LogMeIn Hamachi network. In this step you’ll need to enter a unique name for your network as well as a password for it. If your network name is already in use you’ll need to keep trying until you select one that’s unique. If you’ve previously setup a LogMeIn Hamachi network and want to simply add your server to it, then substitute join for create in the following command:
That’s it. Your LogMeIn Hamachi VPN should be up and running with your Ubuntu server added as one of its member hosts. You can display the status of LogMeIn Hamachi at any time by running the command sudo hamachi without any arguments. To display a full list of all the LogMeIn Hamachi command options, use sudo hamachi -h.
Install and Configure LogMeIn Hamachi on a Linux Client
Now that we’ve installed LogMeIn Hamachi on our Ubuntu Server and created a secure VPN, it’s time to install LogMeIn Hamachi on any Linux-based machines you’d like to use to access your server remotely. You can follow the steps explained above for the Ubuntu server in order to download and install LogMeIn Hamachi on your Linux macbine. Once installed, bring the logmein-hamachi daemon online:
Let’s check to make sure we can see our Ubuntu server on our LogMeIn Hamachi VPN. The following command will your networks (and their hosts) that you are a member of:
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sudo hamachi list
Assuming that LogMeIn Hamachi is running on your Ubuntu server, you should see the nickname you created for the Ubuntu server listed, as well as the IP address assigned to it by LogMeIn (e.g., 25.x.x.x). An asterisk next to a host indicates that corresponding machine is currently online (Note: you will not see the machine your’re running the command from listed). Now that we have our Ubuntu server and our remote Linux client machine online, let’s see if we can initiate a terminal session with the server using SSH:
You may receive a warning concerning the authenticity of the host you’re trying to reach along with a fingerprint of its public RSA key, and asked if you’re sure you want to continue connecting. If you’re absolutely sure that you are indeed connecting to your Ubuntu server, accept by typing yes and you’ll be presented with the login and password prompt. The public key from your Ubuntu server is stored in ~/.ssh/known_hosts. If you don’t want to have to remember the LogMeIn Hamachi IP address each time you want to run an SSH session with your server, simply add the IP address along with a name (e.g. home-server-ssh) to your hosts file (/etc/hosts). Next time you use LogMeIn Hamachi/SSH to connect to your server, use the name instead of the IP address and the host file will resolve the IP address for you.
Install and Configure LogMeIn Hamachi on a Windows Client
Configuring a Windows machine to access your Ubuntu server remotely is easy too. Download and install the Windows version of LogMeIn Hamachi. When you fire up the application for the first time, LogMeIn Hamachi will be in the offline state. Select the Power On icon on the top left of the application). A pop-up screen will appear asking you to enter the nickname to assign to your remote machine. After it is entered, the application will go online; however, we won’t see our Ubuntu server just yet, we first must add ourselves to the network we created. Select the “Join an existing network” and fill in the name of the network and the password you created when setting up the Ubuntu Server and select “Join”. You should see the name of the LogMeIn Hamachi network we created, as well the LogMeIn Hamachi IP address and nickname for our Ubuntu server appear in the screen (See Figure 1). Once installed, the LogMeIn Hamachi application will start whenever Windows starts and the user has logged in. You’ll find various configuration settings for the application under System->Preferences.
Figure 1
We’re almost there. Now we need to download and install an SSH application (Windows doesn’t support SSH natively). There are many out there to choose from, but the one I typically use is PuTTY, a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Linux/Unix platforms. Download PuTTY.exe (or the Installer version if you’d prefer) and run it. Enter the LogMeIn Hamachi IP address for your Ubuntu server in the Host name field, make sure to select the SSH radio button, and then select “Open” (See Figure 2).
Figure 2
You may receive a warning concerning the authenticity of the host you’re trying to reach along with a fingerprint of its public RSA key, and asked if you’re sure you want to continue connecting. If you’re absolutely sure that you are indeed connecting to your Ubuntu server, accept by selecting Yes; a terminal emulator will open and you’ll be presented with the login and password prompt.
If you don’t want to have to remember the LogMeIn Hamachi IP address each time you want to run a session with your server, then simply add the address along with a name of your choice (e.g. home-server-ssh) to your hosts file (/windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts). Next time you use SSH to connect to your server, use the name instead of the IP address and the hosts file will resolve the IP address for you.
Additional Security
As you may have noticed, we’re using conventional password authentication in order to prove to our Ubuntu server who we claim to be. That may be an acceptable level of authentication considering we’re also authenticating over SSH and a secure VPN tunnel. However, you may want to have a more secure form of authentication. Public key authentication is an alternative means of identifying yourself to your Ubuntu server. Instead of typing a password, you generate a key pair, consisting of a public key (which your server is allowed to know) and a private key (which you keep secret and do not give out). The private key is able to generate signatures. A signature created using your private key cannot be forged by anybody who does not have that key; but anybody who has your public key can verify that a particular signature is genuine. Public key authentication is more secure and more flexible, but a little more difficult to set up. We’ll walk through the steps on both a Linux and a Windows client machine in the follow examples, but in essence what is involved is generating a key pair on our remote client machine, and copying the public key to the Ubuntu server. Then, when the server asks to prove who we are, the SSH application can generate a signature using your private key. The server can verify that signature (since it has your public key) and allow you to log in.
Linux Client
Let’s set up our remote Linux client for public key authentication. We first need to generate the public/private key pair:
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ssh-keygen–q–trsa
By default the RSA keys are 2048 bits. You can increase this to 4096 bits if desired with the -b option:
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ssh-keygen–q–trsa–b4096
You’ll be asked by the script where it should store the keys (~/.ssh is the default), and then asked to enter in a passphrase in order to encrypt the private key that will be stored in this machine. If you don’t want to be asked for a passphrase each time you connect, just press enter. It is up to you to decide whether or not you should password encrypt your key when you create it. However, if you don’t, then anyone gaining access to your private key will automatically have SSH access to the server. After you enter a passphrase and confirm it, or simply hit enter, your encrypted private key (id_rsa) and your public key (id_rsa.pub) are generated and stored in ~/.ssh (assuming you accepted the default directory).
Now that our keys are generated, let’s move the public key to our Ubuntu server. Ensure that LogMeIn Hamachi is running, then enter the following command:
This command will copy your public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on your Ubuntu server. That’s it. Now, next time you use SSH/LogMeIn Hamachi to initiate a session with your server you’ll be asked to provide the passphrase (if you provided one when you generated the keys) for your private key instead of your server password. Congrats, you’re now using public key authentication to login to your server. Once you know your key pair works back up both the public and private keys files to an offline media, such as a USB flash drive or CD.
Windows Client
Configuring our remote Windows client for public key authentication requires a little more work. First, we need a Windows application that can generate the public/private key pair. We’ll use PuTTYgen, PuTTY’s key generation utility, to perform this task. PuTTYgen is installed automatically if you use the Windows installer version of PuTTY, else you can simply download and use the standalone version of PuTTYgen.
Start PuTTYgen and verify that “SSH-2 RSA” is selected and change the “Number of bits in a generated key” field to 2048 (or more). Select “Generate” where you’ll be asked by PuTTYgen to move your mouse over the applications blank area in order to generate “randomness.” PuTTYgen will then proceed to create your public/private key pair (See Figure 3).
Figure 3
You may now enter a passphrase for you private key and confirm it. Again, it’s up to you to decide whether or not to protect your private key with a passphrase. However, electing not to means that anyone gaining access to your private key will have SSH access to the server. You also have the opportunity to modify the “Key comment” field. The default entry is the key type and the date it was created. If you intend on creating additional keys, you may wish to populate this field with something different in order to help you differentiate between the various keys.
When complete, select “Save private key” and choose a file name and a location to save the *.ppk file. Next, carefully copy the text contained in the “Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file” box into a text file and save it. Using a program like WinSCP copy the text file to your user account on the Ubuntu server. Now, login to this account and append the contents of this text file to the file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and make sure permissions are set correctly:
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cat~/<your-text-file>>>~/.ssh/authorized_keys
chmod700~/.ssh&&chmod600~/.ssh/authorized_keys
We’re done with PuTTYgen so let’s exit the program. Now fire up PuTTY and navigate to Connection->SSH->Auth. Under Authentication parameters select the Browse button and select the *.ppk file you saved in the previous step (See Figure 4). Now, navigate back up to Session and enter the LogMeIn Hamachi IP address for your server in the Host name field, make sure to select the SSH radio button, and then select Open (of course, LogMeIn Hamachi should be running). You may receive a warning concerning the authenticity of the host you’re trying to reach along with a fingerprint of its public RSA key, and asked if you’re sure you want to continue connecting. Accept by selecting Yes; you’ll be asked to provide the passphrase (if you created one) for your private key instead of your server password. Congrats, you’re now using public key authentication to login to your server. Once you know your key pair works back up both the public and private keys files to an offline media, such as a USB flash drive or CD.
Figure 4
Now that we have public key authentication set up, you may be wondering if you can still logon to the server without a private key? In other words, can you still use your server username and password? The answer is yes. However, that can be changed. After you’re sure that public key authentication is working on the remote machines you’ll be using to access your Ubuntu server, you may want to consider shutting down password authentication. To do that, logon on to your server and open the OpenSSH server’s config file (/etc/ssh/sshd_config). Look for the line #PasswordAuthentication yes and change it to PasswordAuthentication no (Make sure to uncomment the line). Then restart the SSH server with the following command:
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sudo/etc/init.d/ssh restart
Conclusion
Good times eh? Using some open source tools and LogMeIn Hamachi, we set up a secure VPN between remote Windows and Linux clients, and our Ubuntu server. And, we didn’t have to touch our home gateway/router. We also improved the security of the network by using public key authentication.
Unlike Windows XP, Windows 7 doesn’t automatically grant full access to directories and files if you log in as a system administrator. To gain control of a drive or directory and its contents you can perform the following steps:
Right-click on a drive or directory and select “Properties.”
Select the Security tab and then select the “Advanced” button.
Select the Owner tab and then select “Edit.” Click to highlight the user you want to assign ownership to. Make sure to check the check box “Replace owner on subcontainers and objects,” then select “Apply.”
Navigate back to the Security tab, click to highlight the same user and select “Edit.” Click to highlight the same user and assign the appropriate level of permissions using the check boxes (e.g., Full Control), then select “OK.”
(20141224 – This post has been amended to address changes in recent versions of Ubuntu, and to remove outdated instructions — iceflatline)
This post will describe how to use the Window 7 boot configuration data editor (BCDEdit) to configure a Windows 7 system that can boot to Windows 7 or a Linux distribution. The steps described in this post assume that Windows 7 and the Linux distribution will occupy the same physical hard drive. Configuring BCDEdit to recognize and boot a Linux distribution located on a second physical hard drive is beyond the scope of this post.
To help explain the steps involved, we’ll use an 320 GB SATA hard drive with Windows 7 already installed. We’ll reduce the size of the partition containing the Windows 7 operating system and re-partition the remaining unallocated disk space in order to install the Linux distribution Ubuntu. We’ll then use BCDedit to add a Windows boot menu option for Ubuntu. All steps involved assume you have a functioning CD drive (or USB drive if you’d prefer) that the system can boot from. The software versions used in this post were as follows:
Ubuntu v14.10 (x64)
Windows 7 Professional (x64)
Oh…, and while I’ve never encountered a situation where the Windows 7 Disk Management tool destroyed existing disk data, make sure you backup any critical files before you proceed.
So, let’s get started.
Reducing the Windows Partition
The first thing that we need to do is reduce the size of the existing Windows 7 partition. While you can use third-party applications like GParted, I found Windows 7’s own Disk Management tool to be the most efficient method for accomplishing this task. The Disk Management tool can be accessed by using Win+r and entering the command diskmgmt.msc.
You’ll notice that Windows 7 currently occupies all of the existing disk space using two primary partitions: one small boot partition; the other for the operating system. When finished, we’ll have five partitions in total: the two Windows 7-related partitions just mentioned, and ones for the Ubuntu operating system and Linux swap. We’ll also create a small FAT32 partition for sharing data between Windows 7 and Ubuntu. You’ll need to determine how much space you want to allocate to each of these additional partitions based on your requirements and disk size. For our 320 GB disk example, we’ll use the following partition layout:
Windows 7: ~100MB (Windows 7 boot loader)
Windows 7: ~251 GB
Ubuntu: ~31 GB
Linux-Swap: ~1 GB
FAT32: ~16 GB
Right-click on the Windows 7 volume (C:) and selected “Shrink Volume.” Then enter the amount of space (in Megabytes) that the partition should shrink (which in turn becomes the amount of space available to install our Linux distribution), which in our example is 48000 Megabytes (48 Gigabytes), then select “Shrink” (See Figure 1). When complete, exit out of the Disk Management tool and reboot the system.
Figure 1
Installing Ubuntu
Now it’s time to partition our 48 GB of unallocatd disk space and install Ubuntu. Download a copy of Ubuntu Desktop and burn it to a CD (or place it on a bootable USB drive). Boot the system using the Ubuntu disk. Select “Try Ubuntu…” and then double-click the “Install Ubuntu…” icon when the desktop appears. Continue through the installation process until you arrive at “Installation type” and select “Something else”, then select “Continue”. (See Figure 2).
Figure 2
The screen that follows is where we’ll instruct Ubuntu how to partition the unallocated disk space. Left-click on “free space” to highlight it and then select the “+” icon to create a new partition. Make the size of this partition 31000 MB. Ensure it’s a primary partition, and located at the beginning of the free space. Select the Ext4 journaling file system and, since this partition will serve as the root partition for Ubuntu, set the mount point to / from the list of choices in the drop-down lists. Now select “OK” to accept the changes (See Figure 3).
Figure 3
Now let’s create a partition for use as Linux swap space. Once again, left-click on free space to highlight it and then select the + icon to create a new partition. Make the size of this partition 1000 MB. Our disk is limited to a maximum of four primary partitions, so we’ll make this a logical partition – again located at the beginning of the free space. Select “swap area” from the list of choices in the drop-down list, then select “OK” to accept the changes (See Figure 4).
Figure 4
Using similar steps, let’s partition the remaining free space as a FAT32 file system. This too should be a logical parition, located at the beginning of the space. You may also wish to set the mount point to /media/share, or something similar. The benefit of selecting a mount point at this stage is that Ubuntu will add this partition to the file /etc/fstab so that the system automatically mounts it at boot time. No worries though, you can always select a different mount point and manually mount it and/or add it to /etc/fstab at a later time. When complete, select “OK” to accept the changes (See Figure 5).
Figure 5
The final step is critical. We need to tell the Ubuntu installer where to install the system bootloader (GRUB 2). We DO NOT want to install the bootloader on /dev/sda, as that would overwrite our disk’s master boot record, nor do we want to install it on /dev/sda1 or /dev/sda2, as that would overwrite the Windows 7 bootmanager files and boot configuration data, or the operating system itself. Instead, let’s have Ubuntu install its bootloader on the partition that will contain the Ubuntu operating system – in our case /dev/sda3. To do this, click on the drop down list under “Device for boot loader installation” and select /dev/sda3 (See Figure 6).
Figure 6
Select “Install Now” and Ubuntu will begin the installation. When it completes you’ll be asked whether you’d like to reboot or “continue testing”. You should select continue testing as the following steps require access to a terminal.
Configure Windows for Dual Boot
Now that we have our disk partitioned and Ubuntu installed, let’s set up our system to boot Windows 7 or Ubuntu. This will involve copying the boot record of our Ubuntu partition to Windows 7, and using BCDEdit to create a new entry in the BCD store that will point to that file. This way Windows 7 will display a menu at boot time that will give you a choice between Windows 7 and Ubuntu.
First, let’s make a mount point for the FAT32 partition we created. Open a terminal and enter the following:
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sudo su
mkdir/mnt/share
Next, let’s mount the correct device to this directory. Recall from the partitioning steps above that the FAT32 partition is located at device /dev/sda6:
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mount/dev/sda6/mnt/share
Write the first 512 bytes of our Ubuntu partition to a file and copy that file to our FAT32 partition:
Note: using the FAT32 partition in the aforementioned steps is optional. You may chose to use another device such as a USB drive to copy the *.bin file to.
Exit out of the Ubuntu live system and reboot to Windows 7. Along the way, you may see Windows perform a disk check (don’t worry, that’s normal, and should only occur once as a result of these procedures). Log into Windows 7 and open the FAT32 volume you created and you should see the ubuntu.bin file. Copy that file to the root of the Windows 7 volume (e.g., C:).
Now we’ll use BCDEdit to add an entry to Windows 7’s BCD store. Administrative privileges are required to use BCDEdit, so use Win+r, type cmd, and then press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER. Let’s start by creating an entry for our Linux distribution. Note here that you are free to choose another entry name if desired:
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bcdedit/create/d“Ubuntu”/application bootsector
BCDEdit will return an alphanumeric identifier for this entry that I will refer to as {ID} in the remaining steps. You’ll need to replace {ID} by the actual returned identifier. An example of {ID} is {d7294d4e-9837-11de-99ac-f3f3a79e3e93}. Next, let’s specify which partition hosts a copy of the linux.bin file:
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bcdedit/set{ID}device partition=c:
The path to our ubuntu.bin file:
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bcdedit/set{ID}path\ubuntu.bin
An entry to the displayed menu at boot time:
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bcdedit/displayorder{ID}/addlast
and finally, let’s specify how long the menu choices will be displayed:
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bcdedit/timeout30
That’s it! Now reboot and you will be presented with menu where you can choose to boot to Windows 7 or Ubuntu. When you choose Ubuntu, you’ll be taken to the it bootloader menu where you can choose to continue booting Ubuntu.
On a final note, if at any time you want to eliminate the Ubuntu menu option simply delete the BCD store entry you created using the following command:
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bcdedit/delete{ID}
Conclusion
With a minimal amount time and a little Windows command line foo, you can easily set up a system that can dual boot Windows 7 and your choice of Linux distributions.
I recently started using CrunchBang linux on my IBM T43 laptop. I really like CrunchBang and highly recommend it for those looking for a minimalistic , lightweight alternative to Ubuntu, especially on older machines. However, by default, it, or more accurately, its window manager Openbox, makes heavy use of the keyboard “Super” key (also called the “Windows” key) to open many of the most used applications. For example, Super+t opens the default terminal emulator, Super+w opens the default browser, etc. Now normally this would not be a problem, unless of course you own an IBM T43 laptop, in which case you have no windows key. Sure I could go through the hassle of changing all those key assignment in Openbox to something else, say Alt+w, but then both Alt keys would be dedicated to the task. I also wanted to mimic the same key behavior I currently use in Windows. In Windows I assigned my right Alt key as the “Windows” key. Here’s what worked for me in CrunchBox.
First I created the file .Xmodmap so I could add my own key map changes. The standard location for .Xmodmap is your home directory and it (and any key map changes contained therein) should load automatically at start up.
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touch~/.Xmodmap
Then I opened the file and added the following lines:
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remove mod1=Super_R
remove mod1=Alt_R
keycode108=Super_R
add mod4=Super_R
Rebooted and now have a working right Alt key acting as the Super key.
