Network Security Toolkit (NST) 2.15.0 Is Based on Fedora 15

Network Security Toolkit (NST) 2.15.0 has been released. The latest update is based on Fedora 15 and brings all of the changes and new packages included in the latest Fedora release, including Gnome 3.0.

NST is a Linux distro aimed at security experts and network admins and offers a huge variety of tools aimed monitoring and diagnosing network issues as well as testing for common security flaws and weaknesses. 

"We are pleased to announce the latest NST release: 'v2.15.0.' This release is based on Fedora 15 using Linux Kernel: '2.6.40-4.fc15 - Rebased from latest Linux Kernel: 3.0'," an announcement on the project's homepage read.

The latest NST update comes with the recently launched Linux kernel 3.0, which has been 'reversioned' as Linux kernel 2.6.40 in Fedora 15 for compatibility reasons. For all intents and purposes, though, it's the very latest kernel update.

On top of its Fedora 15 roots, NST 2.15.0 comes with plenty of changes and updates of its own.

There is a new Network Interface Bandwidth Monitor app, included in the NST WUI, built with SVJ/AJAX. This makes it possible to monitor network bandwidth though the web user interface. 

The Open Vulnerability Assessment Scanner (OpenVAS) and Greenbone Security tools are now available for NST users and have also been integrated into the web UI. 

The aforementioned web UI has also been updated and enhanced. All packages have been updated to their latest versions.

The THC IPv6 Attack Toolkit is included in NST now as well and available for install. 

With Fedora 15 switching to the GNOME 3.0 desktop, one of the first major distros to do so, NST tools have also been updated to support the new desktop environment.

The custom NST services have been updated and changed to support systemd, the new default Linux init daemon in Fedora 15.

NST also supports the new Fedora Network Device Naming convention. For example eth0 becomes p2p1 or em1.

A bootable ISO live CD and it's based on Fedora.

Network Security Toolkit is a bootable ISO live CD and it's based on Fedora Linux.

The toolkit was designed to provide easy access to best-of-breed Open Source Network Security Applications and should run on most x86 platforms.

The main intent of developing this toolkit was to provide the network security administrator with a comprehensive set of Open Source Network Security Tools. The majority of tools published in the article: Top 75 Security Tools by insecure.org are available in the toolkit.

What we find rather fascinating with NST is that we can transform most x86 systems (Pentium II and above) into a system designed for network traffic analysis, intrusion detection, network packet generation, wireless network monitoring, a virtual system service server, or a sophisticated network/host scanner.

This can all be done without disturbing or modifying any underlying sub-system disk. NST can be up and running on a typical x86 notebook in less than a minute by just rebooting with the NST ISO CD. The notebook's hard disk will not be altered in any way.

NST also makes an excellent tool to help one with all sorts of crash recovery troubleshooting scenarios and situations.

What's New in This Release:

• The entire NST distribution is RPM based and an NST system can be maintained using reduntant RPM repositories.
• NST is now extensible. Add new applications with YUM install.
• "NST Live" allows for read/write rootfs file system access so that new applications can be installed even though it was booted from a DVD device.
• "NST Live" can be installed to a USB device for creation of a "NST Live USB Disk". One can then boot the "NST Live USB Disk" from a system capable of booting from USB devices.
• An "NST Live USB Disk" may contain data persistence allowing session information to be maintained across system reboots and/or system moves.
• For systems that lack a DVD device or can not boot from USB devices, the following solution was created for installation of NST to the system hard disk. The "NST Live" distribution is too big to fit on a CD. An "NST Minimal" ISO is provided and was designed to fit on CD media. One can boot the "NST Minimal" ISO, perform a hard disk installation using the NST script: "nstliveinst" and then YUM install the "nst-live" RPM package to completely build out the full NST distribution.
• A new NST script: "nsttraceroute" has been created that Geocodes output from the traceroute utility in KML format for rendering with Google Earth.
• Added 2 network content capture applications: "driftnet" and "tcpxtract". Driftnet is used to capture and display graphic images (i.e., GIF, JPEG and PNG). TCPxTract is used to capture complete documents including PDF or Microsoft Word docs.
• The Multi-Tap Network Packet Capture page has been enhanced with the integration of ngrep and dsniff.
• Many new applications have been added to this distribution release. Previous existing networking and security applications have been updated to their latest revision.

Network Security Toolkit (NST) 2.15.0 is available for download here

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