whats my school running?

[Weedman]

i dont know where exactly to put this post, but here goes.

i would like to know if anybody has any ideas regarding what my school might be running on the server.

i know they are running squirrelmail, samba and getbusi (which is based on redhat enterprise 3).

are they using redhat enterprise 3 or are they running something else? we have 30 odd mac's that are connecting via samba, so i am guessing that the 30 odd windowsxp pcs are doing the same thing. also, one of the tech guys told me about the fact they put gentoo on older macs to (what it looks to be) run a remote desktop connection through X to a windows 2003 server-edition pc?

thanks guys
//bin/weed -halt-sleep now

[Dapper Dan]

Why don't you ask them which distro they use? I'm sure they'd share that info. Sounds to me like you attend an extremely cool school with so many Linux and Mac boxes! That's really neat!

[Weedman]

they only have a few linux boxes which are old macs. the rest are macOSX and win xp. i cant believe they blocked access to bash on the macs (OSX)

at least i got to try it on my friend's mac!

i could ask them about it, but i need to ask one of the tech guys which is quite hard these days.

another thing i dont get is why the gentoo macs take forever to boot.

thanks Dapper Dan
/weed

[fr333k]

School administrators (unlike mine) are probbaly happy to share that knowlege, and also show you around the IT room if they think you are that interested (Or they could think that everybody apart from themselves barely knows how to turn computers on, like my schools)

Generally information like that can be gained from Nmap, unless they are spoofing there OS (Complicated) so if tehy wont tell you, pull a laptop from home, plug it up and scan the server

[Weedman]

i dont wanna get into deep crap with the tech guys... the head tech guy block access to some guys folder for saying something to him.

i will get around to asking the other tech guy, but i have a HUGE amount of stuff on my plate.

thnaks for your reply
-weed

[kkubasik]

nmap -O *Servers IP Address*

man nmap will explain more, its a complex and powerful tool, but the -O flag triggers its OS detection tool based on TCP/IP stack fingerprinting, if the school uses loadsharing or something more complex, this might not work, but for most generic setups, its a robust tool.

Also, you can check the default error pages (ie 404) Apache will include the machines vitals in that page by default.

[DThor]

Your tech guys sound like jerks. If they worked for me, I'd fire them. They should be proud of the setup and share info to someone who's just plain interested in what they're doing. I can understand if they're busy and don't have time for a private tour, that's cool, but you shouldn't be living in fear of them. That's the sign of what I call "security guard sysadmins". With all due respect to security guards everywhere, many of them feel stuck in a deadend job and the only sense of power they have in their life is to push people around via their job description. A sysadm that acts like that doesn't deserve the job. I've met many.

*Plus* now they're enticing a perfectly innocent request into something where, if you have the time, has you snooping around behind their backs. Their job is to stop that behaviour.

DT

[Weedman]

Your tech guys sound like jerks. If they worked for me, I'd fire them. They should be proud of the setup and share info to someone who's just plain interested in what they're doing. I can understand if they're busy and don't have time for a private tour, that's cool, but you shouldn't be living in fear of them. That's the sign of what I call "security guard sysadmins". With all due respect to security guards everywhere, many of them feel stuck in a deadend job and the only sense of power they have in their life is to push people around via their job description. A sysadm that acts like that doesn't deserve the job. I've met many.

*Plus* now they're enticing a perfectly innocent request into something where, if you have the time, has you snooping around behind their backs. Their job is to stop that behaviour.

DT

wait, i didnt say that they are all jerks. its only the head guy who keeps a watch & orders the other tech guys.

it is an innocent request i spose. i did ask the (cool) tech guy about a laptop case and he was happy to recommend me to his (which was one of those aluminium ones Thank you ebay!).

like i said in my last post, i have a lot on my plate. i will get around to asking him, but probably not this/w.

thanks guys
-weed