Category: Technology

Mikrotik passwordless SSH with public key

2022/10/17 No Comments

Reading time: 18 – 30 minutes

Following the instructions described in the official documentation:

https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Use_SSH_to_execute_commands_(public/private_key_login)

The process is as always as easy as:

# upload the id_rsa.pub file
# then import the public key file for the user used for connecting via SSH
user ssh-keys import public-key-file=id_rsa.pub user=admin-ssh
# and it's done.

Everything was OK with my WSL Ubuntu 20.04. (I added WSL at the beginning of the versions because it runs in Windows Subsystem Linux).

But, with the newest WSL Ubuntu 22.04 I was unsuccessful.

Being precise, the SSH versions are:

# WSL Ubuntu 20.04
$ ssh -V
OpenSSH_8.2p1 Ubuntu-4ubuntu0.5, OpenSSL 1.1.1f  31 Mar 2020

# WSL Ubuntu 22.04
$ ssh -V
OpenSSH_8.9p1 Ubuntu-3, OpenSSL 3.0.2 15 Mar 2022

After connecting with verbose details, I found this message, that was the key for solving the problem:

debug1: Offering public key: /home/my_user/.ssh/id_rsa RSA SHA256:2******************************Y agent
debug1: send_pubkey_test: no mutual signature algorithm

Then, I discovered that newest SSH versions aren’t compatible with Mikrotik SSH version. It seems that version isn’t enough newest and are incompatible with how public keys are negotiated at the beginning of the connection.

Finally, the solution was to use an extra parameter for establishing the connection:

ssh -o 'PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms +ssh-rsa' THE_USER@THE_HOST

Of course, an alternative is using ~/.ssh/config file or the system file: /etc/ssh/ssh_config and add this parameter for everything, or specific hosts. For instance, like this:

Host JUST_A_NAME_OF_THE_CONNECTION
  Hostname THE_IP_ADDRESS_OR_HOSTNAME_OF_THE_TARGET_HOST
  user THE_USER
  PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms +ssh-rsa

Get the IP address of the WSL2 in Windows 10

2022/09/15 No Comments

Reading time: 6 – 9 minutes

Nothing else than what the title says. Simple PowerShell script for dumping the IP address:

wsl -- ip -o -4 -json addr list eth0 `
| ConvertFrom-Json `
| %{ $_.addr_info.local } `
| ?{ $_ }

socat: publish a port only available in localhost

2022/08/25 No Comments

Reading time: 11 – 18 minutes

Assume that we have a service only available in localhost (127.0.0.1/8) and we want to expose this port temporarily. Of course, you can use iptables for redirecting the port. But take care, this is not a simple DNAT because packets will not be evaluated by PREROUTING (-t nat) rules.

Another option is using an old-powerful Swiss knife tool: socat (github).

# binds public port to any local interface
socat TCP-LISTEN:<public_port>,fork TCP:127.0.0.1:<internal_port>
# binds only to an IP address
SOCAT_SOCKADDR=<interface_IP> socat TCP-LISTEN:<public_port>,fork TCP:127.0.0.1:<internal_port>

# examples:

# binds to all interfaces:
socat TCP-LISTEN:1880,fork TCP:127.0.0.1:1880
# just for an IP address of one interface:
SOCAT_SOCKADDR=10.2.0.110 socat TCP-LISTEN:1880,fork TCP:127.0.0.1:1880

WSL2: upgrade from Ubuntu 18.04 to 20.04

2022/08/24 No Comments

Reading time: 16 – 27 minutes

I was afraid for missing my files, configurations and much other staff that I had in Linux filesystem of WSL2 (Windows 10). But I had to upgrade because of compatibility with an application that I need. So, finally, I decided to upgrade the Ubuntu 18.04 that I installed in WSL2 to a newer version 20.04. Yes, I know that there is 22.04 available nowadays, but I wasn’t comfortable jumping to many versions.

I followed simple steps that I found at:

How To Upgrade Existing WSL/WSL2 Ubuntu 18.04 to 20.04

The steps in a nutshell were:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt --purge autoremove
sudo apt install update-manager-core
sudo do-release-upgrade

When I answered all the questions and after stopping the WSL2 VM with:

# command that I ran from 'cmd.exe' (Windows console)
wsl --shutdown

I had and issue rebooting, WSL2 didn’t boot and it gave this message:

wsl/usr/sbin/enter-systemd-namespace: line 10: /usr/sbin/daemonize: No such file or directory

I resolved the problem, shutting down the WSL and running the command:

wsl -u root -e bash --noprofile --norc

It gave me a root console where I could modify the file:

/usr/sbin/enter-systemd-namespace

specifically, in line 10, I changed:

/usr/sbin/daemonize
to
/usr/bin/daemonize

And when I accessed to WSL2 everything worked perfectly. I used to access WSL2 from Windows Terminal which uses the command:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\wsl.exe -d Ubuntu-18.04

But it has small issues with bybou, finally I changed this command to:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\bash.exe ~ -login

I love to use a console with byobu enabled when access the shell, but with my former command, the command ‘byobu-enable’ was ignored. I didn’t find why, in the end the solution was to change the command that I use for accessing Linux console (WSL2).

Likewise, I hope these notes can help someone.

Resize Squashfs/Ext4 partition of OpenWRT in a Raspberry PI

2022/08/04 No Comments

Reading time: 9 – 15 minutes

Quick cookbook for just doing what the subject of the post says:

opkg update
opkg install cfdisk
cfdisk
# change partition size using the UI
opkg install losetup resize2fs
BOOT="$(sed -n -e "/\s\/boot\s.*$/{s///p;q}" /etc/mtab)"
DISK="${BOOT%%[0-9]*}"
PART="$((${BOOT##*[^0-9]}+1))"
ROOT="${DISK}0p${PART}"
LOOP="$(losetup -f)"
losetup ${LOOP} ${ROOT}
fsck.ext4 -y ${LOOP}
resize2fs ${LOOP}
reboot

Network traffic sniffing: tcpdump on Linux + Wireshark on Windows

2021/08/16 No Comments

Reading time: 11 – 18 minutes

From the Windows box using the CLI console (cmd):

ssh USER@HOST "tcpdump -s 0 -U -n -w - -i NETIF FILTER" | "c:\Program Files\Wireshark\Wireshark.exe" -k -i -

# USER - remote user of the linux box
# HOST - host address of the remote linux box
# NETIF - network interface to snif in the remote linux box
# FILTER - (optional) rules for filtering traffic to capture

Use case:

C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH>ssh root@192.168.4.74 "tcpdump -s 0 -U -n -w - -i eno2 udp and not port 53" | "c:\Program Files\Wireshark\Wireshark.exe" -k -i -

Let me present a rare use case of this useful trick. I use a QNAP NAS as a gateway in my home network, where I have 5 NICs. So it’s really useful to snif traffic remotly but I have no tcpdump packet in the system. What I did is use tcpdump as Docker container and finally the commands is like that.

# sniffing SIP traffic (port 5060) on interface eth0
# remote linux host (QNAP NAS) use SSH port 55222
# docker container is created and when work is done is removed
C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH>ssh -p 55222 admin@10.2.0.1 "cd /share/Container/tcpdump && docker run --rm --net=host corfr/tcpdump -s 0 -U -n -w - -i eth0 not port 22 and port 5060" | "c:\Program Files\Wireshark\Wireshark.exe" -k -i -

Personal note:

ssh -p 55222 admin@10.2.0.1 "docker run --rm --net=host corfr/tcpdump -s 0 -U -n -w - -i qvs0 host 10.2.0.177" | "c:\Program Files\Wireshark\Wireshark.exe" -k -i -

Windows 10: Internal Virtual Switch with NAT

2021/07/12 No Comments

Reading time: 11 – 18 minutes

When you are playing with Windows Hyper-V and you want to create a completely virtual internal network with private virtual machines inside your Windows 10 machine virtual switch are mandatory.

Then it’s the time to connect that virtual switch with the host machine using a virtual network interface. All those steps can be done using Hyper-V manager user interface, but you cannot control 100% of parameters like enable, or not, the NAT of the virtual internal network.

Using PowerShell the steps are:

New-VMSwitch -SwitchName NATSwitch -SwitchType Internal
New-NetIPAddress -IPAddress 10.46.1.1 -PrefixLength 24 -InterfaceAlias "vEthernet (NATSwitch)"
New-NetNAT -Name NATNetwork -InternalIPInterfaceAddressPrefix 10.46.1.0/24

Of course, change “NATSwitch” for your switch name and “10.46.1.1” for the IP address of the host virtual network card. Finally “NATNetwork” is another arbitrary name for referring to the NAT rule, and “10.46.1.0/24” is the network address of the virtual internal host network.

Running the commands looks like:

For removing what you did:

Remove-VMSwitch -Name "NATSwitch"
Remove-NetIPAddress -InterfaceAlias "vEthernet (NATSwitch)"
Remove-NetNAT -Name NATNetwork

In Windows 10 IP forwarding is not enabled and packets between interfaces are not routed. According to the Microsoft forums, you can enable IP forwarding (routing) using the following steps:

Go to Start and search on cmd or command. Right click on either cmd or command then select Run as administrator. At the command prompt type regedit. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\ Services\Tcpip\Parameters\IPEnableRouter setting, right click and select Modify. Change 0 to 1 and exit the editor.

When your back at the command prompt type services.msc and navigate to the Routing and Remote Access service. Right click and select Properties. Change to Automatic and click on Start to start the service.

I had to research a long time until I found all this information, but in my case leverage my proofs of concepts to another level.

Zerotier peers monitored on Windows PowerShell

2021/07/05 No Comments

Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes

No words just a simple an powerful .ps1 script:

while (1) { Start-Process -NoNewWindow -FilePath 'C:\ProgramData\ZeroTier\One\zerotier-one_x64.exe' -ArgumentList "-q","peers"; sleep 5; cls }

Or just a command, even equally useful.

DRY DHCP Client: request and IP address to the DHCP server without a DHCP Client

2021/05/27 No Comments

Reading time: 16 – 26 minutes

When you want to discover LAN metadata without being part of that network. So, when you want to discover network address range, gateway, DNS IPs, DHCP server IPs, etc. this simple nmap parameter will help you so much.

# nmap --script broadcast-dhcp-discover

Starting Nmap 7.60 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2021-05-19 15:07 CEST
Pre-scan script results:
| broadcast-dhcp-discover:
|   Response 1 of 1:
|     IP Offered: 192.168.1.127
|     DHCP Message Type: DHCPOFFER
|     Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
|     Renewal Time Value: 4d00h00m00s
|     Rebinding Time Value: 7d00h00m00s
|     IP Address Lease Time: 8d00h00m00s
|     Server Identifier: 192.168.1.1
|     Router: 192.168.1.1
|_    Domain Name Server: 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4
WARNING: No targets were specified, so 0 hosts scanned.
Nmap done: 0 IP addresses (0 hosts up) scanned in 1.43 seconds

Alive: shell script for alive monitoring using PING

2021/05/26 No Comments

Reading time: 15 – 24 minutes

Simple shell script based on bash which monitor a host with command line ping. Just bash and ping are the unique dependencies. Only state change are going to be printed:

#!/bin/bash

IP="THE_IP_TO_MONITOR"
STATE="offline"

show_state()
{
  echo "$(date '+%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S') - " + $STATE;
}

while true;
do
  ping -c 4 $IP > /dev/null 2>&1
  if [ "$?" = "0" ]; then
    if [ "$STATE" = "offline" ];
    then
      STATE="online"
      show_state
    fi
  else
    if [ "$STATE" = "online" ];
    then
      STATE="offline"
      show_state
    fi
  fi
  sleep 10
done