Linux Blimp

Fluxion (linset)

I hadn’t ventured into Hackforums since a while, and this time when I went there I saw a thread about a script called Fluxion. It’s based on another script called linset (actually it’s no much different from linset, think of it as an improvement, with some bug fixes and additional options). I did once think about (and was asked in a comment about) using something like a man in the middle attack/ evil twin attack to get WPA password instead of going the bruteforce/dictionary route, but never looked the idea up on the internet nor spent much time pondering over it. However, once I saw the thread about this cool script, I decided to give it a try. So in this post I’ll show you how I used Fluxion, and how you can too.
Disclaimer : Use this tool only on networks you own .Don’t do anything illegal.

Contents

• Checking if tool is pre-installed, getting it via github if it isn’t.
• Running the script, installing dependencies if required.
• Quick overview of how to use Fluxion.
• Detailed walk-through and demonstration with text explanation and screenshots
• Video demonstration (not identical to the written demo, but almost the same)
• Troubleshooting section

Just double checking

The first thing I did was make sure that Kali doesn’t already have this tool. Maybe if you are reading this post a long time after it was written, then you might have the tool pre-installed in Kali. In any case, try this out:

fluxion

I, personally tried to check if linset or fluxion came pre-installed in Kali (though I didn’t expect them to be there).

 

Getting the script

Getting the script is just a matter of cloning the github repository. Just use the git command line tool to do it.

git clone https://github.com/deltaxflux/fluxion

If you have any problems with this step, then you can just naviagate to the

repostitory

(updated link) and manually download the stuff.

Update : There seems to be some legal trouble with Fluxion. The creator of the script has removed the source code of the tool, and uploaded code that is supposed to delete fluxion from your computer. I don’t know the specifics of what is going on, but will provide updates ASAP.

Update 2: Now the repository is gone altogether!

What this means : As of now, this tutorial is useless. If you can find the source code for Fluxion, then you can use it and continue with the tutorial. Otherwise, not much can be done without the tool.

Update 3!You can try this repo – https://github.com/wi-fi-analyzer/fluxion. It’s an old version, might or might not work.

git clone https://github.com/wi-fi-analyzer/fluxion

 

Update 4

<!–Update_begins–>

Now you can find the latest version of Fluxion

here

. There shouldn’t be any further issues at all.-

git clone https://github.com/FluxionNetwork/fluxion

At the time of updating this post, the latest version was v2 rev 8. Make sure you also have the same or later revision if one has been released. In case any new issues arise with the repository, I’ll update you guys again! Meanwhile, I have tested the installation part and written the updated instructions for it below the instructions for older version. However, I haven’t got the opportunity to test the application. If any of the steps in the new version have changed compared to old version, please comment and I’ll update the tutorial ahead at the earliest possible. Thanks 🙂

<!–Update_ends–>

There are 4 dependencies that need to be installed

Running the script

Just navigate to the fluxion directory or the directory containing the scripts in case you downloaded them manually. If you are following the terminal commands I’m using, then it’s just a simple change directory command for you:

cd fluxion

Now, run the script.

sudo ./fluxion

 

Dependencies (for older version)

If you have any unmet dependencies, then run the installer script.

 

sudo ./Installer.sh

I had 4 unmet dependencies, and the installer script run was a buggy experience for me (though it might be becuase I have completely screwed up my system, editing files I wasn’t supposed to and now I can’t get them back in order) .It got stuck multiple times during the process, and I had to ctrl+c my way out of it many times (though ctrl+c didn’t terminate the whole installer, just the little update popup). Also, I ran the installer script twice and that messed up with some of the apt-get settings. I suggest that after installation is complete, you restore your /etc/apt/sources.list to it’s original state, and remove the bleeding edge repositories (unless you know what you’re doing). To know what your repository should look like, take a look here.

Anyways, one way or the other, your unmet dependencies will be resolved, and then you can use Flexion.
PS: For those trying to use apt-get to install the missing stuff – some of the dependencies aren’t available in the default Kali repos, so you’ll have to let the script do the installation for you, or manually add the repos to /etc/apt/sources.list (look at the script to find out which repos you need to add)

 

Dependencies (for newer version)

The only difference lies in the directory structure and name of script. The install.sh script is in the fluxion/install/ directory and not fluxion/ (and is called install.sh instead of Installer.sh) . Basically you just have to change one line. Run the below command on terminal and wait for it to finish executing. Then proceed.

sudo ./install/install.sh

Fluxion

Once again, type the following:

sudo ./fluxion

This time it should run just fine, and you would be asked a few very simple questions.

• • For the wireless adapter, choose whichever one you want to monitor on. For the channels question, choose all, unless you have a specific channel in mind, which you know has the target AP.
  • Then you will see an airodump-ng window (named Wifi Monitor). Let it run while it looks for APs and clients. Once you think you have what you need, use the close button to stop the monitoring.

Fluxion using airodump-ng

• You’ll then be prompted to select target.
• Then you’ll be prompted to select attack.
• Then you’ll be prompted to provide handshake.
• If you don’t have a handshake captured already, the script will help you capture one. It will send deauth packets to achieve that.
• After that, I quit the procedure (I was using the script in my college hostel and didn’t want to cause any troubles to other students).

If you are with me so far, then you can either just close this website, and try to use the tool on your own (it look intuitive enough to me), or you can read through the test run that I’m going to be doing now.

Getting my wireless network’s password by fooling my smartphone into connecting to a fake AP

So, in this example run, I will try to find out the password of my wireless network by making my smartphone connect to a fake AP, and then type out the password in the smartphone, and then see if my Fluxion instance on my Kali machine (laptop) gets the password. Also, for the handshake, I will de-authenticate the same smartphone.

PS: You can probably follow this guide without having any clue how WPA works, what handshake is, what is actually going on, etc., but I suggest you do read up about these things. Here are a few links to other tutorials on this website itself that would prove useful (the first two are theoretical, yet nice, the third one is a pretty fun attack, which I suggest you try out, now or later):

Anyways, with the recommended reading material covered, you can comfortably move on to the actual hacking now:

The real stuff begins!

This section is going to be a set of pictures with captions below them explaining stuff. It should be easy to follow I hope.

Select language

After selecting language, this step shows up. Note how I am not using any external wireless card, but my laptop’s internal card. However, some internal cards may cause problems, so it’s better to use an external card (and if you are on a virtual machine you will have to use an external card).

The scanning process starts, using airodump-ng.

You get to choose a target. I’m going after network number 21, the one my smartphone is connected to.

You choose an attack. I am going to choose the Hostapd (first one) attack.

If you had already captured a 4-way handshake, then you can specify the location to that handshake and the script will use it. Otherwise, it will capture a handshake in the next step for you. (A tutorial on capturing the handshake separately)

If you didn’t capture a handshake beforehand, then you get to choose which tool to use to do that. I’m go with aircrack-ng.

Once you have a handshake captured (see the WPA Handshake: [MAC Address] on top, if it’s there, then you have the handhake), then type 1 and enter to check the handshake. If everything’s fine, you’ll go to the next step.

Use the Web Interface method. I didn’t try the bruteforce thing, but I guess it’s just the usual bruteforce attack that most tools use (and thus no use to us, since that’s not what we are using this script for).

This offers a variety of login pages that you can use to get (phish) the WPA network’s password. I went with the first choice.

After making your decision, you’ll see multiple windows. DHCP and DNS requests are being handled in left two windows, while the right two are status reporting window and deauth window (to get users off the actual AP and lure them to our fake AP)

In my smartphone, I see two network of the same name. Note that while the original network is WPA-2 protected, the fake AP we have created is an open network (which is a huge giveaway stopping most people from making the mistake of connecting to it). Anyways, I connected to the fake AP, and the DNS and DHCP windows (left ones), reacted accordingly.

After connecting to the network, I got a notification saying that I need to login to the wireless network. On clicking that, I found this page. For some people, you’ll have to open your browser and try to open a website (say facebook.com) to get this page to show up. After I entered the password, and pressed submit, the script ran the password against the handshake we had captured earlier to verify if it is indeed correct. Note how the handshake is a luxury, not a necessity in this method. It just ensures that we can verify if the password submitted by the fake AP client is correct or not. If we don’t have the handshake, then we lose this ability, but assuming the client will type the correct password, we can still make the attack work.

Aircrack-ng tried the password again the handshake, and as expected, it worked. We successfully obtained the password to a WPA-2 protected network in a matter of minutes.

Video Demonstration

PS: The creator of the video has forked the Fluxion repository, and in the video he cloned from it instead. You may choose to fork from either of those. The original repository being more updated, and forked one being more stable (but less frequently updated). As of the time of creation of the video, both the repositories were the same, so it doesn’t make a different which one you clone,

but this may not always be the case

. In case of any issues, you can probably try cloning both and see which one works for you.

Troubleshooting

Since fluxion and Kali both are constantly evolving (you might be using a different rolling release of Kali, as well as a different version of Fluxion. There are times when the tool break, and there’s an interval of time for which it stays broken. Look at the

issues page

, and you will most probably find a fix for your problem. Note that the issue may as well be in closed issues (it would most probably be in closed issue).

For those who are able to follow the guide to the second last step, but don’t get any Login page on their device,

this issue suggests a solution

. [Dated : 17th September 2016, if you’re reading this much later then this might not be relevant, and some other issue would be]

Update : There are some important things mentioned in the README.file on the github repository. See if that helps.

https://github.com/deltaxflux/fluxion/blob/master/README.md

As of 1st November, 2016 (again, might not be relevant if you read this much later), the README suggested this for the no fake login page problem (which seems quite common)-

FakeSites don’t work
There might be a problem with lighttpd. The experimental version is tested on lighttpd 1.439-1. There are some problems with newer versions of lighttpd. If you problems use the stable version. Check the fix out.

Again, as I said, it all breaks down to one of two things-

1. You are doing some step wrong (easy to fix, follow the tutorial again).
2. There is a dependency issue somewhere (some tool has it’s wrong version installed). This can be a pain to fix, and there’s no guidance I can provide for it really. You’ll have to filter through all the issues on the github page of the tool. Hopefully, as the tool grows popular, it’ll get more full time developers, and then get integrated in the Kali repository, till then, these problems will continue.

What now?

I illustrated one possible scenario. This script can work with other devices (laptops for example) too as the fooled clients (not just smartphones). One possible short-coming to this attack is that most smartphones/laptops these days don’t automatically connect to open networks (unless they have before), and hence the user has to do it manually. If your fake AP has more signal strength than the real one, then a person who doesn’t know about WPA and open networks could very easily end up connecting to your network instead. So, overall this attack has a fair chance of succeeding.

Have any problems/comments/suggestions, leave them in the comments below.

Source

When installing Ubuntu 18.04, Canonical’s installer will offer to send some statistics to them. Canonical have now released some of this. One thing to note, is that this data does not include Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Core, cloud images or and any other Ubuntu derivatives that don’t include the report in their own installer.

They’ve had some good results from it, with 66% of people sending them their data although they don’t mention how many results this is actually from. It’s a nice start, but I think they really need to do some separation of physical and virtual machines, since it seems they’re merged together which will skew a bunch of the data I would imagine. If you’re interested in seeing what data is sent on Ubuntu, it can be found in “/.cache/ubuntu-report/”.

Their data shows that 98% of people are using the 64bit version on Ubuntu, which lines up with our own user survey. On top of that, a desktop resolution of 1920×1080 remains the most popular at 28% with 1366×768 being the next highest at 25%. What’s interesting, is that higher resolutions have a pretty low use with 2560×1440 and 3840×2160 both only seeing 1% although that could easily be watered down due to virtual machines.

One thing that’s quite odd is the CPU section under the “Number of CPUs” heading, which claims 27% of people have 4-6 CPUs. Something about that doesn’t seem right. 27% of people have at least 4 CPUs in the computer they’re installing Ubuntu on? I think they need to improve the wording on this quite a bit just so it’s crystal clear on exactly what the statistic represents. Likely CPU cores. I’ve let them know about it to take a look.

Take a look here at their full statistics page if you’re interested.

Article edited and re-posted due to a mess up with the text causing some confusion, mostly my own—apologies.

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ClipGrab

is a free software to download and convert videos from different famous sites of Internet. You can easily save your favorite videos from sites like Dailymotion or Vimeo. And you can convert these videos into “usable” formats like WMV, MPEG or MP3. You can check here  which sites are supported by this software.

It can convert videos to WMV, MPEG4, OGG Theora, MP3 (audio only), OGG Vorbis (audio only) or simply download videos in their original format. However, downloading from some sites doesn’t allow you to select other format from drop-down menu, it could be issue with site videos.

ClipGrab can download from the following sites: Clipfish, Collegehumor, Dailymotion, MyVideo, MySpass, Sevenload, Tudou, Vimeo and others. ClipGrab isn’t limited to the sites listed, because many more sites are supported “unofficially” through the automatic site-recognition of ClipGrab. By the way, ClipGrab can also download HD videos from sites that have support for high definition.

To Install ClipGrab in Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic/16.04 Xenial/14.04 Trusty/Linux Mint 19/18/17 open Terminal (Press Ctrl+Alt+T) and copy the following commands in the Terminal:What do you say about this application?

Source

If you have a Linux distribution installed, you can replace it with another distribution in the dual boot. You can also keep your personal documents while switching the distribution.

Suppose you managed to successfully dual boot Ubuntu and Windows. But after reading the Linux Mint versus Ubuntu discussion, you realized that Linux Mint is more suited for your needs. What would you do now? How would you remove Ubuntu and install Mint in dual boot?

You might think that you need to uninstall Ubuntu from dual boot first and then repeat the dual booting steps with Linux Mint. Let me tell you something. You don’t need to do all of that.

If you already have a Linux distribution installed in dual boot, you can easily replace it with another. You don’t have to uninstall the existing Linux distribution. You simply delete its partition and install the new distribution on the disk space vacated by the previous distribution.

Another good news is that you may be able to keep your Home directory with all your documents and pictures while switching the Linux distributions.

Let me show you how to switch Linux distributions.

Replace one Linux with another from dual boot

Let me describe the scenario I am going to use here. I have Linux Mint 19 installed on my system in dual boot mode with Windows 10. I am going to replace it with elementary OS 5. I’ll also keep my personal files (music, pictures, videos, documents from my home directory) while switching distributions.

Let’s first take a look at the requirements:

• A system with Linux and Windows dual boot
• Live USB of Linux you want to install
• Backup of your important files in Windows and in Linux on an external disk (optional yet recommended)

Things to keep in mind for keeping your home directory while changing Linux distribution

If you want to keep your files from existing Linux install as it is, you must have a separate root and home directory. You might have noticed that in my dual boot tutorials, I always go for ‘Something Else’ option and then manually create root and home partitions instead of choosing ‘Install alongside Windows’ option. This is where all the troubles in manually creating separate home partition pay off.

Keeping Home on a separate partition is helpful in situations when you want to replace your existing Linux install with another without losing your files.

Note: You must remember the exact username and password of your existing Linux install in order to use the same home directory as it is in the new distribution.

If you don’t have a separate Home partition, you may create it later as well BUT I won’t recommend that. That process is slightly complicated and I don’t want you to mess up your system.

With that much background information, it’s time to see how to replace a Linux distribution with another.

Step 1: Create a live USB of the new Linux distribution

Alright! I already mentioned it in the requirements but I still included it in the main steps to avoid confusion.

You can create a live USB using a start up disk creator like Etcher in Windows or Linux. The process is simple so I am not going to list the steps here.

Step 2: Boot into live USB and proceed to installing Linux

Since you have already dual booted before, you probably know the drill. Plugin the live USB, restart your system and at the boot time, press F10 or F12 repeatedly to enter BIOS settings.

In here, choose to boot from the USB. And then you’ll see the option to try the live environment or installing it immediately.

You should start the installation procedure. When you reach the ‘Installation type’ screen, choose the ‘Something else’ option.

Select ‘Something else’ here

Step 3: Prepare the partition

You’ll see the partitioning screen now. Look closely and you’ll see your Linux installation with Ext4 file system type.

Identify where your Linux is installed

In the above picture, the Ext4 partition labeled as Linux Mint 19 is the root partition. The second Ext4 partition of 82691 MB is the Home partition. I haven’t used any swap space here.

Now, if you have just one Ext4 partition, that means that your home directory is on the same partition as root. In this case, you won’t be able to keep your Home directory. I suggest that you copy the important files to an external disk else you’ll lose them forever.

It’s time to delete the root partition. Select the root partition and click the – sign. This will create some free space.

Delete root partition

When you have the free space, click on + sign.

Create a new root partition

Now you should create a new partition out of this free space. If you had just one root partition in your previous Linux install, you should create root and home partitions here. You can also create the swap partition if you want to.

If you had root and home partition separately, just create a root partition from the deleted root partition.

Creating root partition

You may ask why did I use delete and add instead of using the ‘change’ option. It’s because a few years ago, using change didn’t work for me. So I prefer to do a – and +. Is it superstition? Maybe.

One important thing to do here is to mark the newly created partition for format. f you don’t change the size of the partition, it won’t be formatted unless you explicitly ask it to format. And if the partition is not formatted, you’ll have issues.

It’s important to format the root partition

Now if you already had a separate Home partition on your existing Linux install, you should select it and click on change.

Retouch the already existing home partition (if any)

You just have to specify that you are mounting it as home partition.

Specify the home mount point

If you had a swap partition, you can repeat the same steps as the home partition. This time specify that you want to use the space as swap.

At this stage, you should have a root partition (with format option selected) and a home partition (and a swap if you want to). Hit the install now button to start the installation.

Verify the partitions

The next few screens would be familiar to you. What matters is the screen where you are asked to create user and password.

If you had a separate home partition previously and you want to use the same home directory, you MUST use the same username and password that you had before. Computer name doesn’t matter.

To keep the home partition intact, use the previous user and password

Your struggle is almost over. You don’t have to do anything else other than waiting for the installation to finish.

Wait for installation to finish

Once the installation is over, restart your system. You’ll have a new Linux distribution or version.

In my case, I had the entire home directory of Linux Mint 19 as it is in the elementary OS. All the videos, pictures I had remained as it is. Isn’t that nice?

About Abhishek Prakash

I am a professional software developer, and founder of It’s FOSS. I am an avid Linux lover and Open Source enthusiast. I use Ubuntu and believe in sharing knowledge. Apart from Linux, I love classic detective mysteries. I’m a huge fan of Agatha Christie’s work.

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In today’s workplace, our colleagues may not be located in the same office, city, or even country. A growing number of tech companies have a global workforce comprised of employees with varied experiences and perspectives. This diversity allows companies to compete in the rapidly evolving technological environment.

But geographically dispersed teams can face challenges. Managing and maintaining high-performing development teams is difficult even when the members are co-located; when team members come from different backgrounds and locations, that makes it even harder. Communication can deteriorate, misunderstandings can happen, and teams may stop trusting each other—all of which can affect the success of the company.

What factors can cause confusion in global communication? In her book, “The Culture Map,” Erin Meyer presents eight scales into which all global cultures fit. We can use these scales to improve our relationships with international colleagues. She identifies the United States as a very low-context culture in the communication scale. In contrast, Japan is identified as a high-context culture.

Read more at OpenSource.com

Source

Learn to love the browser instead

Microsoft loves Linux. Unless you are a Linux user who happens to want to use Teams. In that case, you probably aren’t feeling the love quite so much.

Users of that other collaboration platform, Slack, have enjoyed a Linux client for some time. Teams users, on the other hand, have had to make do with a browser experience that is often less than ideal. Hence the fifth most requested Teams feature in Microsoft’s UserVoice forum is a Linux client.

The request was made nearly two years ago and, at time of writing, has attracted 5,376 votes and 37 pages of comments. Yesterday, however, Linux users hoping to become first class citizens were dealt a cruel blow. A Microsoft representative has admitted that no, there is no dedicated engineering resource working on a Linux client.

The omission is an odd one. Microsoft has a Skype client for Linux, so a similar client for Teams should not be beyond the imagination of the Windows giant. Particularly given its much-publicised love for the Linux platform.

Using Teams through a browser on Linux is a limiting experience. Video conferencing, calling and desktop sharing are problematic, if not impossible. In the current documentation for Teams, Microsoft states that Meetings is supported on Chrome 59 or later, but Firefox users are out of luck for Calling or Meetings and should download a desktop client. Oh, or use Edge.

Neither of the latter two options are really viable for Linux users.

One enterprising Teams enthusiast has published a method of coaxing video calls and presentations into life on Linux via Chrome or Chromium, but the process is a little convoluted and effectively has the browser pretend it is actually Edge in order to prevent Teams from ignoring it.

It is all rather unsatisfactory, and we’ve contacted Microsoft to get more detail on its decision.

Linux has a vanishingly small share of the desktop market compared to Windows. However, this has not stopped Microsoft releasing developer tools such as Visual Studio Code on the platform. In the light of that, it seems an odd call to exclude those same developers from the full fat version of Redmond’s collaboration vision. ®

Sponsored:
Following Bottomline’s journey to the Hybrid Cloud

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Among the changes to find in Ubuntu 18.10 are the latest stable Linux kernel as well as a significant Mesa upgrade and also the latest X.Org Server. These component upgrades make for a better Linux gaming experience particularly if using a modern AMD Radeon graphics card. Here are some results as well as whether it’s worthwhile switching to Linux 4.19 and Mesa 18.3-dev currently on Ubuntu 18.10.

 

 

The move from Linux 4.15 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS to now Linux 4.18 with Ubuntu 18.10 is significant due to many AMDGPU DRM improvements during that time as covered in numerous Phoronix articles over the summer. There is also the transition from Mesa 18.0.5 to Mesa 18.2.2 that is very significant especially for the RADV Vulkan driver with performance optimizations, new Vulkan extensions, and numerous fixes. The RadeonSI Gallium3D driver has also received improvements as well this year though in Mesa 18.0 it was already quite mature so if you are solely using OpenGL applications/games the impact is likely much less.

The largest underlying upgrade is from X.Org Server 1.19.6 to X.Org Server 1.20.1. X.Org Server 1.20 is a very big update given its lengthy development cycle. There are DRI3 additions, server-side GLVND, many XWayland improvements, a lot of GLAMOR 2D optimizations, and more.

 

 

For Radeon gamers the X.Org Server 1.20 adoption is most significant if you have an HTC VIVE headset and utilize Steam VR for virtual reality gaming… X.Org Server 1.20 paired with Linux 4.18 have the necessary bits around RandR leasing, non-desktop quirk handling for VR headsets, and other plumbing/infrastructure work made by Keith Packard over the past nearly two years to improve the support around VR on Linux. I’ll have some fresh Linux VR tests using Ubuntu 18.10 coming up soon on Phoronix.

Given the numerous upgrades, I ran some benchmarks with a Radeon RX 580 and RX Vega 64 graphics cards to show the impact of the upgrade. The configurations tested were:

– Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS with its stock Linux 4.15 + X.Org Server 1.19.6 + Mesa 18.0.5 built against LLVM 6.0.

– Ubuntu 18.10 with its default Linux 4.18 kernel + X.Org Server 1.20.1 + Mesa 18.2.2 built against LLVM 7.0.

– Ubuntu 18.10 when upgrading to the Linux 4.19 Git kernel using the Ubuntu Mainline Kernel PPA and also using the Oibaf PPA to switch to Mesa 18.3-devel Git built against LLVM 7.0 for the latest open-source graphics experience.

Various OpenGL and Vulkan games were benchmarked using the Phoronix Test Suite.
Source

Oct 17, 2018, 09:00

(Other stories by Sean Michael Kerner)

ShieldX announced its new Elastic Security Platform on Oct. 17 providing organizations with Docker container based data center security, that uses advanced machine learning to determine intent.

At the core of the Elastic Security Platform is a technology that ShieldX calls the Adaptive Intention Engine that automatically determines the right policy and approach for security controls across multicloud environments. The intent-based security model can provide network microsegmentation, firewall and malware detection capabilities, among other features

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• NeuVector 1.3 Boosts Container Security with Improved Threat Detection(Nov 13, 2017)
• Layered Insight Takes Aim at Container Security(Feb 05, 2018)
• Twistlock 2.3 Advances Container Security with Serverless Support(Jan 03, 2018)
• DockerCon EU 17 Panel Debates Docker Container Security(Oct 20, 2017)
• 10 layers of Linux container security(Oct 09, 2017)
• CNCF Adds Notary, The Update Framework to Boost Container Security(Oct 24, 2017)

Source

Typically, companies hiring Linux and other IT professionals are resorting to a standard interview process. The whole operation is hacked together like Frankenstein’s monster. It’s complicated and stressful for all involved – and it’s what you’ve got to suffer through if you want a job in IT.

This article will help you get ready to master your next technical interview and keep your cool in the process. It’s kind of disappointing that an industry known for innovation is still mired in old-school, haphazard hiring practices, but it’s what we’re stuck with for now. So read on to learn how to prepare yourself mentally so you can show up as your best self, wow the hiring manager, and keep stress at bay – not just at the interview, but during the entire hiring process.

We’re jumping into this assuming that you’re at the beginning stages, but you’ve been in touch with the hiring manager at the company. You’ve sent in your resume, and now we’re moving on to your first direct interaction.

The Phone Screen Interview

Once the company receives your resume and sees that you meet the minimum qualifications, they’re likely going to request a phone screening. This isn’t a technical interview. Instead, they just want to make sure you’re not crazy. It’ll last about 15 to 20 minutes, and the questions will be along the lines of:

• Why are you looking for a new job?
• Why did you apply here?
• What about the job description caught your eye?
• What kind of work have you been doing?

Seriously, all they’re doing is seeing if you can speak without sounding like a psycho. Don’t ask stupid questions like “Do you have free beer on Fridays?” Don’t go super-deep, either. Just answer their questions in a coherent manner and you should be just fine.

There’s a chance they may ask you a few tech-oriented questions, but it’s going to be more along the lines of, “I see you’ve worked with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Tell me about it.”

Really, they’re just weeding people out at this stage, so this is not where you have to super-wow anyone. Prove that you’re not totally crazy, prove that you’re more or less capable of talking to people and holding a job, and you’ll be fine.

If you want to prepare, just make sure you have good answers to the questions above, why you’re looking for a new job, and what you’ve been up to.

The First Technical Screen

After the phone interview, you might have a technical phone interview, or be assigned a take-home project to check your technical chops.

The goal for the hiring manager is to get the number of interviews down to a reasonable level. After reading through everyone’s resumes and doing the first phone interview, they’ve gotten rid of about 90 percent of the clunkers, but there are still too many candidates to bring in for an interview. The tech screen will usually be pretty straightforward and simple questions to see whether or not you know what you said you know on your resume.

Typically, they’ll say, “I see on your resume you worked at X, Y, and Z.” Then you can say, “Yes, that’s where I did such-and-such and was in charge of this-and-that, and I did such-and-such as well.” Just give a basic overview. Don’t get too technical unless they ask for more detail.

If they do ask more questions, that’s a great sign. The deeper questions they ask, the better. At this point, it can be good to clarify the technical knowledge of the person you’re speaking to so you know if you’re talking to an actual technical person, or a receptionist who is just going down a checklist.

But be careful – it can be touchy. Do NOT assume that just because you’re talking to a woman, she isn’t technical. More than once, applicants have totally sunk their chances of getting hired because they were a total sexist jerk by assuming the person they were speaking to was a receptionist or administrative assistant, and not the platform engineer.

So if they don’t say, “Hey, this is Emily, I’m a senior platform engineer,” you can ask by phrasing it like, “I didn’t catch your position… what is your role?” Determine who you are talking to, no matter what they look or sound like. Be polite and you’ll be okay.

A take-home tech project will usually be a small programming project where you’ll need to do some scripting, or you’ll use some general purpose programming language of your choice to solve some problem. You might have to do some log analysis, for instance, and then you submit your code. (If you need help with shell scripting, check out my course on it here.)

To really show your best side, comment on your code and also provide a README, even if it’s just a couple of paragraphs long. It doesn’t have to be extensive or complicated. Just say something like, “This function does X. It takes this type of input and produces this type of output.”

If your project is timed and you don’t have time to write test cases or handle people putting in bad input, you can tell them how it will fail. You can say, “I didn’t have time to do this, but if your input is a string it’s going to fail this way.” Make sure to tell them what you weren’t able to test, otherwise they’re just going to assume that you didn’t know that you needed to test.

You can do the minimum, or you can use these projects to show that you’re a professional and you care about the quality of what you’re working on. (Hint: Don’t do the bare minimum.)

Whatever you hand in, be ready to talk through it afterwards. Don’t just copy the answer off the Internet. Be prepared to explain why you approached it the way you did. If you just copy the answer, you’re just going to look like a bigger jerk later when you get caught. Even if it’s too hard, just do your best and be upfront about it. The biggest thing is to be honest and act like a professional. You never know when you are going to run into someone again, so you don’t want to burn any bridges by lying yourself into a job.

The First In-Person Interview

After you make it past the first tech review, you’ll be invited in to meet people face-to-face. This is make-or-break time, and you need to be prepared. But don’t try to learn a totally new programming language or cram for your in-person meetings. You just aren’t going to be able to do it. You might think you’re pulling it off, but people who know are experienced in that area will know immediately that your knowledge is about an inch deep.

But while you don’t want to cram, you still can review things that you should know because of your previous roles.

Let’s say you’ve been using Puppet for configuration management for a couple years or you’ve done worked on Puppet at home, but you know they use Ansible for configuration management in the role you are applying for. I would definitely read over some Ansible documentation and look at a few examples, but your wheelhouse should be Puppet, so you better know Puppet. If they asked you to write an Ansible playbook, you can say, “I don’t really know how I would do it in Ansible, but I can show you how I do it in Puppet…” The main thing is to know what you SHOULD know and sound confident that you can learn what you need to learn for the new role.

Confidence is really key. It’s easy to stress out and get anxious. But remind yourself it’s not black or white. It’s rarely a case where you will totally pass or totally fail. If you don’t know something, just talk through it. You can be totally upfront and say, “I’m kind of stressed and I’m drawing a blank,” and then start breaking down the issue. Like, “OK, I don’t know how that config works, but I know that this has to happen so the request can go from A to B, and I know it’s going to talk to these three servers…” Then you’re giving them information and you’re showing them that even under duress you have a high level understanding and you’ve clearly worked with it before and you’re comfortable with it. That can be just as important is having gotten the answer “right.” And it can be even more important to show them your thought process.

Even the more technical aspects like whiteboarding or live coding are still just as much about seeing your thought process as they are seeing your familiarity with the tools of the language and your ability to get the right answer in a reasonable amount of time. After all, standing up in front of three or four people and working through a problem in real time on a whiteboard with a marker that probably doesn’t work… that’s not really a natural situation to put an engineer in. But even so, chances are you’re going to be in that situation, so be ready. And remember to talk through it and keep communicating.

It’s better to get it slightly wrong and be communicating about your thought process the whole time than it is to stand there silently for five minutes and then arrive at the right answer. After all, they’re not hiring you to solve that one specific problem on the board; they’re hiring you to solve a whole general class of problems that may or may not be like that. They want to know how you think, and the only way they’re going to know that is if you tell them what you’re thinking as you work through it.

Taking Breaks During the Interview

At some point during your in-person interviews, you’re going to get a break or two. You might think, “They’re so nice, they’re letting me have some downtime,” or “Awesome, free lunch.” Don’t get fooled! You are STILL being evaluated during this time, often for personality or behavior.

There are plenty of ways for the interview to go wrong even when you’re not standing at the whiteboard. For instance, if you’re offered something to eat or drink, be polite about it. Say, “No thanks,” or “Yes please.” But don’t insult the company complaining about their drink choices or grumbling because they only have Diet Coke when you would much prefer Cherry Coke Zero.

As soon as you step out of your car and into the front door of the company, you’re being judged. You’re on stage, and you’re on until you walk out the door. If you’re sitting in the waiting room, don’t be doing anything out of the ordinary. People will notice if you stick your gum under your chair or eat all the good chocolates out of the bowl on the reception desk and leave the wrappers on the floor.

Don’t give them any excuse to think you’re anything but awesome. (Because you ARE awesome, right!)

Being Interviewed by an Executive

Depending on how big the company is, you’ll likely meet with a director, VP, or even the COO, CEO, or CTO. This is the high level interview where you’re going to show them that you understand what the company does. If you don’t know before you get the interview, make sure you at least have a basic understanding of the company’s purpose before you start interviewing.

This is also a great way to show your interest in them. You can say, “I read that you do XYZ. Can you tell me how that works?” That gives you a chance to interview them a little bit, too.

Technical Interviewing Tips

Now that you know what to expect during the process, here are some additional tips to make sure you’re the most prepared and successful you can be:

Don’t be afraid to ask about the process. Sure, this article has given you a great outline, but it will vary a bit from company to company. Asking how the individual company does things will help you be better prepared. You can also ask when you can expect to hear back at each stage. It shows you’re interested in moving forward.

At least a quarter of the interview process should be you interviewing the company. Don’t be afraid to ask questions like:

• Can I see where I’m going to work?
• Can I meet some of the people that I’m going to work with?
• What is the standard vacation policy?

If something’s important to you ask!

Word of warning: You don’t want to start out your first interview by asking how many vacation days you get, or if it’s okay that you come in at noon three times a week. But at some point in the process, this will become a negotiation, and you want answers to the questions that are important to you.

Don’t fall for the ping-pong table. Having a cool office is nice and all, but getting unlimited Monster drinks and access to bean bag chairs doesn’t make up for getting paid $10K under market.

Make sure you meet your boss. And by “boss,” that means the person who’s going to determine how much you’re going to get paid. If you don’t meet that person at some point in the interview process, that’s a warning sign. It doesn’t mean you should jump ship, but it is something worth asking about. Sometimes it can indicate that they’re in so much turmoil they don’t know who you’re going to report to. Sometimes it means things are in such flux that the org chart changes from one day to the next. And sometimes it just means it’s an oversight. But it’s worth asking about.

Prepare your questions for the interviewer. The worst thing you can do when someone asks you if you have any questions is to say, “No.” Instead, create a written list of questions about the company. Even if you have five or six interviews in a day, you can ask similar versions of the same question to each of your interviewers. Contrary to what you might think, asking questions actually shows your intelligence level.

• How much technical debt is there?
• How much freedom do you have to choose the solutions you implement?
• What’s the worst part of your job? (You probably won’t get a 100 percent truthful answer, but you’ll get a glimpse!)

Confidently Tackle Your Next IT Interview!

Now that you know what to expect, hopefully you’ll remember that the most important part of the interview process is confidence. Knowing the “right” answer to any question is great, but it’s even more important to show that you’re an incredible, intelligent person who would be awesome to work with.

Source

Xubuntu 18.04 LTS – See What’s New

Xubuntu 18.04 LTS is the latest release og Xubuntu. this release
features latest version of Xfce 4.12 as default desktop, include Xfce
components.

In Xubuntu 18.04, various GNOME apps have been swapped out with
corresponding MATE apps, including Evince with Atril, File Roller with
Engrampa, and GNOME Calculator with MATE Calculator. The new
xfce4-notifyd panel plugin is included, allowing you to easily toggle
“Do Not Disturb” mode for notifications as well as view missed
notifications.

Xubuntu 18.04 LTS also comes with an updated Greybird GTK+ theme that
includes a new dark style, better HiDPI support, greater consistency
between GTK+ 2 and GTK+ 3 apps, GTK+ 3 styles for Google Chrome and
Chromium web browsers, smaller switches, and improved scales. However,
the GTK Theme Configuration tool was removed and it’s no longer possible
to override colors in themes.

Download Xubuntu 18.04
Source