nUbuntu or Network Ubuntu was a project to take the existing Ubuntu

Ubuntu (operating system)

Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...

 operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 LiveCD and Full Installer and remaster it with tools needed for penetration testing servers and networks

Computer network

A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....

. The main idea is to keep Ubuntu's ease of use and mix it with popular penetration testing tools. Besides usage for network and server testing, nUbuntu will be made to be a desktop distribution for advanced Linux users.

Contents

nUbuntu uses the light window manager

Window manager

A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment...

 Fluxbox

Fluxbox

Fluxbox is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, which started as a fork of Blackbox 0.61.1, with the same aim to be lightweight. Its user interface has only a taskbar, a pop-up menu accessible by right-clicking on the desktop, and minimal support for graphical icons...

.

It includes some of the most used security programs for Linux, such as Wireshark

Wireshark

Wireshark is a free and open-source packet analyzer. It is used for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and communications protocol development, and education...

, nmap

Nmap

Nmap is a security scanner originally written by Gordon Lyon used to discover hosts and services on a computer network, thus creating a "map" ofthe network...

, dSniff

DSniff

Dsniff is a password sniffer written by Dug Song and a package of utilities that parse many different application protocols and extract interesting information....

, and Ettercap

Ettercap (computing)

Ettercap is a free and open source network security tool for man-in-the-middle attacks on LAN. It can be used for computer network protocol analysis and security auditing. It runs on various Unix-like operating systems including Linux, Mac OS X, BSD and Solaris, and on Microsoft Windows...

.

History

• 2005-12-18 - nUbuntu Project is born, developers release Testing 1
• 2006-01-16 - nUbuntu Live developers release Stable 1
• 2006-06-26 - nUbuntu Live developers release version 6.06
• 2006-10-16 - nUbuntu featured in Hacker Japan, a Japanese hacker magazine http://www.byakuya-shobo.co.jp/hj/info3.html#2006_11
• 2006-11-21 - nUbuntu Live developers release version 6.10
• 2007-12-31 - nUbuntu developer Tom Bell retires from project, Brendan Almonte takes over
• 2008-11-12 - Gerix IT Security Solutions become a nUbuntu Technical Partner

As of April 4, 2010, the official website is closed with no explanation.

Releases

Below is a list of previous and current releases.

Version	Release date	Release name
Stable 1	2006-01-16	nUbuntu Live
Stable	2006-06-26	6.06
Stable	2006-11-21	6.10
Alpha	2008-07-16	8.04
Alpha	2008-10-30	8.10
Beta	2008-12-17	8.12 Instigating Insecurity

Further reading

• Russ McRee (Nov 2007) Security testing with nUbuntu, Linux Magazine
  Linux Magazine
  Linux Magazine is a European professional journal. It addresses itself to readers who work professionally with operating systems based around the Linux kernel. Linux Magazine is published by Linux New Media AG and was born after the great success of Linux-Magazin...
  
  , issue 84

External links

• Official website of nUbuntu