How to Install and Use UFW Firewall on Linux

Introduction

UFW also known as Uncomplicated Firewall is an interface to iptables and is particularly well-suited for host-based firewalls. UFW provide an easy to use interface for beginner user who is unfamiliar with firewall concepts. It is most popular firewall tool originating from Ubuntu. It supports both IPv4 and IPv6.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to install and use UFW firewall on Linux.

Requirements

  • Any Linux based distribution installed on your system
  • root privileges setup on your system

Installing UFW

Ubuntu

By default, UFW is available in most Ubuntu based distributions. If it is deleted, you can install it by running the following linux command.

# apt-get install ufw -y 

Debian

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Keep Your /home Safe With Cron Backups

Objective

Create a backup script that regularly backs up important files from your /home directory.

Distributions

This will work with any Linux distribution.

Requirements

A working Linux install with root access.

Difficulty

Easy

Conventions

  • # – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command
  • $ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

Introduction

Sure, there are backup utilities for Linux, but with a couple of scripts, you can keep your important files backed up regularly with little to no effort.

A very simple Bash script will do the bulk of the work. For the rest, you’ll take advantage of the cron system already on your computer.

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Master Your Videos From The CLI With FFMPEG

Objective

Learn the basics of video conversion with FFMPEG.

Distributions

FFMPEG is available on most Linux distributions.

Requirements

A working Linux install with FFMPEG installed.

Difficulty

Easy

Conventions

  • # – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command
  • $ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

Introduction

Video formats can be a real pain. Some programs and devices only support a select few. Others take up loads of space on your hard drive. Even worse, the playback on poorly converted media is terrible.

FFMPEG puts the power in your hands and all from the command line. You can use FFMPEG to wrangle your video files into exactly the right file formats without sacrificing quality or dealing with clunky and incomplete GUI tools that have more dependencies than functionality.

This guide covers some of the most common uses and functions of FFMPEG in handling video, but there are certainly more. Plus, as a command line utility, FFMPEG is fully scriptable, so you can think of some of the possibilities.

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Master Your Audio From The CLI With FFMPEG

Objective

Learn the basics of audio manipulation and conversion with FFMPEG.

Distributions

FFMPEG is available for nearly all Linux distributions.

Requirements

A working Linux install with FFMPEG.

Difficulty

Easy

Conventions

  • # – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command
  • $ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

Introduction

Audio formats are often easier to manage than video ones, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t come with their own headaches. For the most part, audio problems stem from DRM and losses in quality. While FFMPEG can’t always help with DRM, it can help you to convert your files without losing quality.

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Protect Your System. Run Your Browser In Firejail

Objective

Install Firejail and use it to sandbox applications, like web browsers, that interact with the open Internet.

Distributions

This will work with any current Linux distribution.

Requirements

A working Linux install with root privileges.

Difficulty

Easy

Conventions

  • # – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command
  • $ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

Introduction

The single biggest threat to your Linux system is your web browser. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. A browser is a large and complex piece of software with the ability to execute code, and it accesses the open Internet and executes just about everything that it comes into contact with.

The best way to handle this problem is by compartmentalizing your browser, or any other Internet-facing application, away from the rest of your system. This way, it can’t do nearly as much damage if it is compromised. That’s what Firejail is for.

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Keep Track Of Your Schedule With Taskwarrior

Objective

Learn the basics of Taskwarrior to schedule and manage your to-do list.

Distributions

Taskwarrior is a very common program that’s available on every major distribution.

Requirements

A working Linux install with root privileges.

Difficulty

Easy

Conventions

  • # – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command
  • $ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

Introduction

Taskwarrior is an simple but powerful command line tool for managing tasks and objectives. Taskwarrior has been around for a while, and it’s still in active development and going strong. As of today, Taskwarrior is probably the best command line task management utility available.

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Gorilla Password installation on CentOS/Redhat 7 Linux

Gorilla Password safe application is not part of CentOS/Redhat 7 package repository and thus it needs to be installed manually on your Linux system. First, let’s take care of the prerequisites. Here we assume that you have already enabled EPEL repository:

# yum install tcllib tk itcl git

In the next step we are going to clone a current Gorilla Password repository using git command:

$ cd /tmp/
$ git clone https://github.com/zdia/gorilla.git

Once we get Gorilla Password sources cloned locally we can copy them into a designated directory/opt:

# cp -r gorilla/sources/ /opt/gorilla

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Introduction to SELinux concepts and management

Objective

Introduction to SELinux concepts and management

Operating System and Software Versions

  • Operating System: – Linux distribution agnostic

Requirements

  • Root access on a working Linux installation with a valid SElinux policy
  • policycoreutils package: it provides getsebool, setsebool, restorecon utilities
  • coreutils package: provides chcon utility
  • policycoreutils-python package: provides semanage command
  • policycoreutils-newrole: provides the newrole program
  • setools-console: provides seinfo command

Difficulty

MEDIUM

Conventions

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