Crypt for Linux
I’ve recently installed Linux on my home machine and I am stili trying to get familiar vvith it. After years of using Windows it is somevvhat different to my usual set-up.
Hovvever, things have not been completely straightforvvard as I have encountered a couple of problems along the vvay – I hope that you are able to help me.
I dovvnloaded a .CRYPT file from the web and I have the passvvord for it, but l’m unable to decrypt it. The instructions say that you should use the UNIX crypt command and enter something like this: crypt passvvord < fılename.tar.gz.crypt I gunzip -c I tar xvf
When I type it in, I just get ‘command not found’. Would any of the Red Hat packages have the crypt command in (I’ve got Red Hat 6.1)? If not, can I get a version of it off the vveb?
Unfortunately, this is not the only problem that I have encountered. When I try and install a package using the rpm command, I get the error message vvhich says “cannot open /var/lib/rpm/ packages.rpm”. When I look in the directory, /var/lib/rpm,
packages.rpm is defınitely there. Do you have any idea vvhat the problem is?
One final problem that I have been having is that vvhen I unmount a floppy disk after copying data to it, the file /mnt/floppy stili has the copied fileş in. Shouldn’t unmounting the diskette and removing it return /mnt/floppy to an empty file?
I hope you are able to help me.
Paul Griffiths, via email
rlgj Most Linux distributions vvill not actually ^ İl have the crypt command, but instead 1 vvill use mcrypt, a more secure, GPüd version of the old Unix crypt. You can find the source code for mcrypt at http:// mcrypt. hellug.gr/, but it’s also available as a Red Hat package. Even if it’s not included on your Red Hat CD-ROM, you can dovvnload it from their vvebsite. Go to the Dovvnloads page at www.redhat.com and search for mcrypt.
As for your next problem, you don’t say vvhat tool you’re using to install RPMs – is it the command-line rpm or a graphical front-end? İnstalling packages vvith the shell-based rpm is dead easy. You simply do rpm -instail package.rpm I suspect the problem is that you aren’t logged in as root, and so the rpm tool cannot gain vvrite access to the file packages.rpm to modify it The solution is to log in as root before installation, or, if you vvant users other than root to be able to install packages, modify the permissions of the various RPM database fileş in /var/lib/ rpm so that they are vvritable by your chosen group or users.
Your final problem is rather odd. Are you sure this is vvhat happens? İt could be that at some point you’ve copied fileş to /mnt/floppy and forgotten about them. Then vvhen you mount the floppy, these fileş get hidden by the contents of the floppy, only to reappear again once you unmount the disk. Do fileş actually get copied to a floppy disk successfully?
There is another possible cause to this problem; it might be that if you vvere using an automounter such as the kernel autofs system or supermount. You should not dismount drives under the control of these systems vvith the unmount command, because it vvill only confuse the automount demon.