Author: Grzegorz Juszczak

Install Xfce 4 Desktop Environment on CentOS 7

install xfce 4 desktop environment on centos 7
Xfce is a free and open-source desktop environment for Unix and Unix-like platforms which aims to be fast, intuitive, user-friendly and lightweight, while still being visually attractive for user.

In the below short tutorial we will install Xfce 4 Desktop Environment on CentOS 7 system in few steps.
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Install and Configure KVM (Bridge Net Interface) on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7

kvm installation configuration setup on centos7 redhat7
KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a virtualization infrastructure for the Linux which requires a processor with hardware virtualization extension to be able to host guest sytems. KVM is convenient solution to test and try different operating systems if you don’t have a possibility to purchase expensive and power consuming physical hardware.

The below tutorial presents KVM (QEMU) installation and setup along with Linux Bridge configuration on CentOS7 / RedHat7 operating system.
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Install and Configure Elasticsearch Cluster on CentOS 7 nodes

Install and Configure Elasticsearch Cluster on CentOS 7 nodes
Elasticsearch is a search server/engine based on Apache Lucene. It provides a multi-node distributed full-text search engine with an HTTP web interface and sophisticated RESTful API. Elasticsearch is developed in Java and is released as open source under the terms of the Apache License.

There are several types of nodes in Elasticsearch architecture:

  • Master-eligible node – eligible to be elected as Master node, which controls the cluster.
  • Data node – holds data and performs data related operations such as search, and aggregations
  • Client node – acts as a “router” forwarding cluster-level requests to the master node and data-related requests (such as search) to the data nodes
  • Tribe node – special type of client node that can connect to multiple clusters and perform data-related operations across clusters

In this tutorial we will install Elasticsearch Cluster on three Centos 7 based nodes: Master-eligible node, Data node and Client node.
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How to shrink OpenStack qcow2 image using qemu-img

shrink openstack qcow2 image
If you transfer qcow2 images very frequently across OpenStack Clouds or between KVM and Openstack environments, they can quickly grow larger. Luckily qcow2 image size can be decreased to reasonable values using qemu-img tool. During image conversion the empty sectors are detected and suppressed from the destination image. Below we present how to shrink Openstack/KVM qcow2 image.
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Download Kali Linux OpenStack KVM qcow2 image by tuxfixer.com

Kali Linux Openstack KVM qcow2 image by tuxfixer.com

Kali Linux (formerly known as BackTrack Linux) is an open-source, Debian-based Linux distribution designed for advanced Penetration Testing and Security Auditing. Kali Linux contains dozens of tools targeted towards various information security tasks, such as Penetration Testing, Security Research, Computer Forensics, and Reverse Engineering. Kali Linux is a multi-platform solution, accessible and freely available to information security professionals and hobbyists.

Kali Linux can run as a bare-metal server, can be booted from a live CD or live USB, or it can run as KVM virtual machine or OpenStack instance using qcow2 image.

TuxFixer's Kali openstack qcow2 image

Below you can purchase ready to use Kali Linux OpenStack / KVM 64bit qcow2 images. There are two types of image:

  • OpenStack.qcow2 image – cloud-init service enabled, SSH password-based/key-based login, local console/GUI login
  • KVM.qcow2 image – SSH password-based login, local console/GUI login
image name image size metapackages
Kali_2022.1_Xfce_OpenStack.qcow2 3.0 GB kali-linux-core + Xfce
Kali_2022.1_Xfce_KVM.qcow2 2.9 GB kali-linux-core + Xfce

Price: $5.90

Image details:

  • os-release: 2022.1
  • GUI: Xfce
  • filesystem size inside image: 25 GB
  • minimum flavor requirements: 1 vCPU, 2GB RAM, 25GB HDD

Note: by purchasing and using this software you accept our Terms and Conditions




virt-what: Check if your remote server runs in virtual environment

virt-what - detect if we are running in a virtual machine
Have you ever wondered if the server you bought at the hosting provider is in fact a dedicated server or just a VPS and what is the underlying virtualization environment your server runs on?
virt-what provides us the ability to detect if we are running in a virtual machine or on bare-metal (real hrdware). virt-what detects common types of virtualization: hyperv, kvm, openvz, qemu, virtualbox, vmware, xen, etc…
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Scan Remote Host for Open Ports using nmap Port Scanner

Extend LVM Volume Group
nmap (Network Mapper) is an open source tool for network exploration and security auditing and a powerfull port scanner. It can be used locally on localhost as netstat alternative, but it’s main use case is to scan remote hosts for open ports, system type, running services, etc…
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Linux cp mv overwrite without prompt (disable interactive mode)

Linux cp mv disable prompt
Some Linux distributions (for example: RedHat) have aliases configured in the system, especially for root user, which modify basic command line operations like: cp, mv by adding “-i” parameter to prevent user from accidental overwriting or deleting files (interactive mode). This can be disturbing, especially when we are dealing with many files at a time. To get rid of this issue we can modify aliases in the system to disable interactive mode.
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