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AUTOMATIC UPDATES FOR UBUNTU 22.04

Setting up automatic updates is critical if you want to maintain a secure environment. Make sure you have automatic backups that occur prior to the updates, so you have a rollback plan.

Here are the commands to set it up.

Open a terminal:
sudo su –
apt install unattended-upgrades
systemctl status unattended-upgrades
apt install update-notifier-common
nano /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

Now remove the // before each of these lines, and change the values to make them relevant for your system
Unattended-Upgrade::Mail “youremailaddress@yourdomain.com”;
Unattended-Upgrade::MailReport “on-change”;
Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Kernel-Packages “true”;
Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Kernel-Packages “true”;
Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Dependencies “true”;
Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot “true”;
Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot-WithUsers “true”;
Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot-Time “06:00”;
Unattended-Upgrade::OnlyOnACPower “true”;

Save and Exit the file

nano /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades

Now replace the contents of the file with the info below:
APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists “1”;
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade “1”;

Save the File and Exit

dpkg-reconfigure -plow unattended-upgrades

Reboot your system instead of running a service restart

That’s it!

INSTALL TOR ON KALI 2024.1

This is a quick guide on how to install tor on the newest version of Kali Linux. By default the version that I am running does not have it.

Open a terminal and Type:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install tor -y
sudo apt install torbrowser-launcher -y

Now to run Tor you will need to open a second terminal

In the first terminal type:
tor
Press Enter. This will start the service

In the second terminal, type:
torbrowser-launcher
Press Enter

This will open the Browser

Try navigating to my Onion site to test it out:
longleycr37tvhhrxmbs3buk3ze6vtpyouz3gy6uytdqqfvoiqrf3yyd.onion

HOW TO SETUP A TOR ONIONSITE ON APACHE

Here is a simple how-to guide on setting it up in 2024

First you will want a server that has nothing on it and is not publicly available. I suggest getting a spare PC, or setting it up on a VM.

Make sure the PC/VM is on a standalone VLAN and behind a firewall so no other traffic can get to it. Open NO Ports, setup No NATs, TOR does not need them open to function properly.

First, Install Ubuntu Server 22.04 or Ubuntu Server 24.04

Then ssh into the server

Type:
sudo su –

dpkg –print-architecture

If it is either amd64, arm64 or i386, it will work, if it is not any of those structures, find a different system to run it on.

Type:
apt install apt-transport-https

lsb_release -a

What is your version of linux? It wil be listed as something like
Codename: focal
or
Codename: jammy
or whatever the latest flavor is

Install Apache:
apt-get update

apt install apache2

mv /var/www/html/index.html /var/www/html/index.html.orig

nano /var/www/html/index.html

Type in
Hi, You Found Me!

Save and Exit

Now Type:
cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

nano tor.list

paste in this:
deb     [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/tor-archive-keyring.gpg] https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org <DISTRIBUTION> main
deb-src [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/tor-archive-keyring.gpg] https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org <DISTRIBUTION> main

Change <DISTRIBUTION> to focal or jammy or whatever, so it looks like this:
deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/tor-archive-keyring.gpg] https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org jammy main
deb-src [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/tor-archive-keyring.gpg] https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org jammy main

Save and Exit

Now type:
wget -qO- https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89.asc | gpg –dearmor | tee /usr/share/keyrings/tor-archive-keyring.gpg >/dev/null

apt update

apt install tor deb.torproject.org-keyring

nano /etc/tor/torrc

Uncomment these lines by deleting the #

HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/
HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:80

Save and Exit

systemctl restart tor

systemctl restart apache2

cat /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/hostname

and your onion site will show like this:
longleycr37tvhhrxmbs3buk3ze6vtpyouz3gy6uytdqqfvoiqrf3yyd.onion

Now you can go to a site like torgateway.com and browse to that onion site to ensure it is live. I would prefer if you actually used your own tor browser instead using a setup like the one I created here for Tor and Tails.

Enjoy the darkweb!

HOW TO ACCESS TOR SAFELY

This is a quick How-To on installing Tails OS to a USB Drive, so you can use TOR on any computer, Anywhere

To start, on your computer:

Download BalenaEtcher and install it

Visit https://tails.net/ to get your copy of Tails, which was created by the makers of TOR

Download Tails, the latest version

Insert a USB into your Computer

Open BalenaEtcher

Click Flash From File

Select Tails

Select Target

Select your USB Drive

Click Flash!

Once it is done being flashed, you can put it in a computer to use

Boot/Reboot the computer

Select your USB Drive on startup

Tails will begin!

Once you are in Tails, to use TOR, click Activities in the Top Left

Select Tor Browser

Connect the circuit to the tor network.

Once connected to Tor you can test it by visiting my website:

Go to https://jaylongley.com and navigate to the Contact Page

Note that UBlock Origin has found trackers on my website. It finds google analytics and whatnot. This is supposed to happen. You will see why in a minute.

There you will see a tor address. Copy that address

Open a new tab in Tor

Place the Onion address that you received from my contact page, and navigate there

You will see my darkweb page appear

Now note UBlock Origin, has NO trackers here. To use Tor and ensure your safety, only work with pages and sites that do not track you!

Happy Surfing

INSTALL AND RUN CISA SCUBAGEAR

Quick How-To on installing and running the app

First – Get Global Administrator permissions to the M365 Tenant

Second – Open a browser and login into it using the newly created Global Administrator Account

Next Download SCuBAGear version 1.0 from – https://github.com/cisagov/ScubaGear
Only use 1.0 because the other versions are buggy

Open PowerShell as an Administrator (right click and select this) on the computer that you will run SCuBAGear from

cd C:\directory\ScubaGear-main\
To the directory you installed SCuBAGear

Type
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass

Type
.\SetUp.ps1

Type
cd PowerShell\ScubaGear

Type
Import-Module -Name .\ScubaGear.psd1

Type:
Disconnect-SCuBATenant

Type:
cd ..\..\utils

Type:
Invoke-Scuba


Login as your Global Admin account

The report will run!

INSTALL ESXI 8 ON INTEL NUC 12

Here is how I was able to install ESXi 8 onto my Intel NUC 12 Wall Street Canyon

Press Power Button

Press F2 to get into the BIOS

Navigate to the Power, Performance and Cooling tab

Select External Ambient Temperature

Set to User Defined

Mouse over to Performance and click on it

Set the number of E-Cores to 0

F10 to save and Exit BIOS

Now you can reboot and install ESXi

CREATE DMARC RECORD

This is a quick how-to on setting up the record. If you want a more in-depth one, there are many available elsewhere. So for now, here it is

Login into your Email Server

Create a new email address. Something like dns@tacticalware.com

Next, Login into your DNS Provider
Ex – Network Solutions, Hostgator, ENOM

Navigate to the area to Manage DNS records

Create a TXT record

Name will be
_dmarc

Value will be:
v=DMARC1; p=reject; rua=mailto:dns@tacticalware.com; ruf=mailto:dns@tacticalware.com; fo=1;

Make sure you change dns@tacticalware.com to whatever the email address is that you created in the first step

Save the record

Go to MXToolbox.com and enter your domain name

You should see a green checkmark next to DMARC

AUTOMATICALLY REFRESH A WEBPAGE

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Here is the code, that you will want to add to the header of your website. It will automatically refresh the page for you at a predetermined time interval. This code works with static pages, and each CMS like drupal, wordpress, and others

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="60">