AUTHOR: Sebastian Faulborn

DATE: 2007/07/17

UPDATE:

ALL PACKAGES: a list of all packages installed with Secure-SLinux can be found here

LICENSE: GPL (see the license of the individual software packages)

SYNOPSIS: Installation of binary archive of Secure-SLinux Server (SSLX-Server)

CONTENTS:

...

Requirements:

To run SSLX-Server you need at least:

128MB RAM (recommended 256MB RAM or better) - SSLX-Desktop consumes about 75MB RAM after the boot process

i386 compatible architecture with i586 compatible processor or better (you can compile from source for i486)

3GB harddisk space (recommended 10GB for root partition and 1GB for swap both on raid1)

Download:

Download the most recent SSLX-Desktop binary archive from here.

Installation:

Follow the installation instructions of SSLX-Server V1.0.0pre2 but using the downloaded file(s) of SSLX-Desktop V1.0.0pre2. Note that the current release of SSLX-Desktop includes both SSLX-Server and SSLX-Workstation.

You can download SSLX-Desktop as a single file (about 860MB) or as two files (about 450MB each) so you can burn CDs of the files. If you use the two files version, simply repeat the unpacking instructions for both files.

Then boot into your new SSLX-Desktop installation and continue the configuration as follows.

Mouse

GPM is used to handle the mouse both in the console and for X-Windows. GPM can be configured in the file "/etc/sysconfig/mouse".

USB mice are automatically detected by the kernel. There is nothing you can configure.

PS/2 mice mostly work with one of two drivers: ps2 or imps2. By default imps2 is used which automatically falls back to ps2 if it cannot initialize an imps2 mouse - in which case you can ignore the error message. In all other cases read the documentation about gpm (man gpm).

GPM is configured to forward both the events of an USB mouse and a PS/2 (or other) mouse to /dev/mouse which is used by XOrg. So if you cannot get your mouse to work in the console, it won't work in X-Windows either!

XOrg

XOrg is the base system of X-Windows. It provides a client/server windowing system which can be used both locally and remote. Note that the remote protocol of XOrg is inherently insecure and should only be used over encrypted connections (SSH).

XOrg is configure by editing the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

Mouse

You can leave for now the section about the mouse. If your mouse works in the console it will also work in X-Windows. If you have problems with the scroll wheel in X-Windows run the program "xev" under X-Windows to see whether the scroll wheel produces any output (the same does "mev" in the console but it does not display any output for the scroll wheel).

If you have problems with the mouse, you can of course also configure it the XOrg way. See the documentation at BLFS or XOrg.

Keyboard

The keyboard is by default configured for German keyboards. Read the documentation about XOrg for other layouts.

Graphics card

By default you will boot into linux using VESA framebuffer. You will not need to configure anything to get XOrg running with framebuffers. You can set the resolution and colour depth with the "vga=..." parameter in the boot options of the kernel (/boot/grub/menu.lst).

Framebuffers will be fast enough for your everyday work. If for some reason you want to access your graphics card directly or want to be able to also choose the refresh rate, you can boot into linux without framebuffers (remove vga=... in the kernel boot options) and configure your graphics card in xorg.conf. Please read the documentation about XOrg and have a look at the output of the command "lspci" to find out which hardware you have.

Testing XOrg

start XOrg with:

startxfce4 &

You should now see the XFCE desktop environment. If everything is well, quit the current session with the exit button at the right of the panel. If something went wrong, kill XOrg with [CTRL]+[ALT]+[BACKSPACE]. Have a look at the error messages at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" or "/root/.xsession-errors".

XDM

Now start X-Windows by entering:

xdm

This will start the login manager. Login using "root" and the password you set when configuring SSLX-Server. You should now see the XFCE desktop environment with the Secure-SLinux background.

User

If you want to add user for logging into the desktop environment you will need to add them to the group "shutdown" if the user should be allowed to shutdown or reboot the computer. Otherwise the shutdown menu will have the appropriate items greyed out.

The user "root" has no screen saver running as xscreensaver has problems when being run as that user. This means that when you leave your computer while being logged in, you cannot lock your screen and the screen saver will not automatically protect your screen after a while. For this and other reasons as well you should always enter the desktop environment as non-root.

Boot options

If you want to boot directly into the desktop environment, edit the file /etc/inittab and change "id:3:initdefault:" into "id:5:initdefault:" so that linux boots by default into runlevel 5.

Finished!

Yes that's all there is! Enjoy one of the most secure and practical desktop environments for linux.

If you like Secure-SLinux or have questions please contact us at info AT secure-slinux DOT org.