System Administration Apps
Zenmap is the official cross-platform GUI for the Nmap Security Scanner. It is free and runs on Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, etc. Zenmap aims to make Nmap easy for beginners to use while providing advanced features for experienced Nmap users. Frequently used scans can be saved as profiles to make them easy to run repeatedly. A command creator allows interactive creation of Nmap command lines. Scan results can be saved and viewed later. Saved scan results can be compared with one another to see how they differ. The results of recent scans are stored in a searchable database.
Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented, extensible programming language. It provides an extraordinary combination of clarity and versatility, and is free and comprehensively ported.
Process Hacker is a feature-packed tool for manipulating processes and services on your computer. A free and open source process viewer with powerful process termination and memory searching/editing capabilities.
Key features of Process Hacker:
• A simple, customizable tree view with highlighting showing you the processes running on your computer. • Detailed system statistics with graphs. • Advanced features not found in other programs, such as detaching from debuggers, viewing GDI handles, viewing heaps, injecting and unloading DLLs, and more. • Powerful process termination that bypasses security software and rootkits. • View, edit and control services, including those not shown by the Services console. • View and close network connections. • Starts up almost instantly, unlike other programs.
Arch Linux is an independently developed, x86_64 optimized GNU/Linux distribution targeted at competent Linux users. It uses pacman, its home-grown package manager, to provide updates to the latest software applications with full dependency tracking. Operating on a rolling release system, Arch can be installed from a CD image or via an FTP server. The default install provides a solid base that enables users to create a custom installation. In addition, the Arch Build System (ABS) provides a way to easily build new packages, modify the configuration of stock packages, and share these packages with other users via the Arch Linux user repository.
Nmap ("Network Mapper") is a free and open source (license) utility for network exploration or security auditing. Many systems and network administrators also find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime. Nmap uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, but works fine against single hosts. Nmap runs on all major computer operating systems, and official binary packages are avalable for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. In addition to the classic command-line Nmap executable, the Nmap suite includes an advanced GUI and results viewer (Zenmap), a flexible data transfer, redirection, and debugging tool (Ncat), a utility for comparing scan results (Ndiff), and a packet generation and response analysis tool (Nping).
Manjaro is a user-friendly Linux distribution based on the independently developed Arch operating system. Within the Linux community, Arch itself is renowned for being an exceptionally fast, powerful, and lightweight distribution that provides access to the very latest cutting edge – and bleeding edge – software. However, Arch is also aimed at more experienced or technically-minded users. As such, it is generally considered to be beyond the reach of those who lack the technical expertise (or persistence) required to use it.
Developed in Austria, France, and Germany, Manjaro provides all the benefits of the Arch operating system combined with a focus on user-friendliness and accessibility. Available in both 32 and 64 bit versions, Manjaro is suitable for newcomers as well as experienced Linux users. For newcomers, a user-friendly installer is provided, and the system itself is designed to work fully ‘straight out of the box’ with features including:
- Pre-installed desktop environments
- Pre-installed graphical applications to easily install software and update your system, and
- Pre-installed codecs to play multimedia files
For more experienced – and adventurous – users Manjaro also offers the configurability and versatility to be shaped and moulded in every respect to suit personal taste and preference. Furthermore, a minimalist NET-Edition is also available in both 32 and 64 bit versions. Stripped of any pre-installed software, this provides a base installation on which to build your own system; starting from a command line, be completely free to chose your own greeters, desktops, hardware drivers, software applications, and so on!
Rufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc.
Features:
- Formats USB memory sticks to FAT/FAT32/NTFS/exFAT/UDF/ReFS
- Creates bootable USB drive from a wide range of ISOs
- Creates MS-DOS/FreeDOS bootable USB memory sticks, with no external files required
- Creates BIOS or UEFI bootable drives
- Checks for bad blocks
- Modern UI, with UAC elevation for Windows Vista and later
- Fully Open Source (GPL v3)
It can be be especially useful for cases where:
- you need to flash a BIOS or other firmware from DOS
- you need to install an Operating System or run a Live CD from USB
- you need to work on a system that doesn't have an OS installed
- you want to run a DOS low-level utility
Despite its small size, Rufus provides you with everything you need!
Glances is a cross-platform monitoring tool which aims to present a large amount of monitoring information through a curses or Web based interface. The information dynamically adapts depending on the size of the user interface.
It can also work in client/server mode. Remote monitoring could be done via terminal, Web interface or API (XML-RPC and RESTful). Stats can also be exported to files or external time/value databases.
Glances is written in Python and uses libraries to grab information from your system. It is based on an open architecture where developers can add new plugins or exports modules.
aptitude is a terminal-based frontend for Advanced Package Tool with a number of useful features, including: a mutt-like syntax for matching packages in a flexible manner, dselect-like persistence of user actions, the ability to retrieve and display the Debian changelog of most packages, and extreme flexibility and customization.
Proxmox Virtual Environment is a complete and easy to use Open Source virtualization platform for running Virtual Appliances and Virtual Machines. Proxmox VE tightly integrates KVM hypervisor and LXC containers, software-defined storage and networking functionality on a single platform, and easily manages high availability clusters and disaster recovery tools with the built-in web management interface.
SuperPutty is a Windows GUI Application that allows the PuTTY SSH Client to be opened in Tabs. Additionally there is support for SCP to transfer files.
SuperPutty is written in C# and runs on any Windows platform supporting the .NET Framework 2.0 or newer.
Advanced Port Scanner is a fast and free port scanner allowing you to quickly find open ports (TCP and UDP) on network computers and retrieve versions of programs running on the detected ports. The program provides easy access to network resources such as shared folders, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, RDP and Radmin. You can wake or shut down computers remotely. There is also an option to run quick commands (ping, tracert, telnet and SSH) on a selected PC.
Radmin (Remote Administrator) is the popular, award winning secure remote control software which enables you to work on a remote computer in real time as if you were using its own keyboard and mouse. You can remotely access the same computer from multiple places and use advanced File Transfer function, multi-user Text and Voice chats, Remote Shutdown and Telnet.
Radmin's widely recognized benefits are its high speed, strong security, and solid reliability. Radmin 3 fully supports Windows 8, including User Account Control and Fast User Switching. Radmin utilizes unique DirectScreenTransfer technology that provides unprecedented speed of work with a minimal CPU usage. The major advantage of DirectScreenTransfer is that it receives data directly from Windows, before it ever gets to the Video RAM.
Radmin 3 supports Intel AMT (Active Management Technology) and allows the manipulating of a remote computer even if it's turned off or you cannot start its operating system. Using Radmin Viewer you can turn on, restart and shut down the remote computer. It also enables the user to view and change the BIOS settings of the remote computer and to boot it from a local CD or disk image file.
Radmin 3 demonstrates a remarkable increase of security due to its integration with professional developments such as Windows Security, 256 bit AES data encryption for all data transferred, NTLM/Kerberos, modified Diffie-Hellman 2048 bit algorithm and Active Directory support. The new increased levels of Radmin Security protect all the active data on the network. Access rights are individual for each user. Special IP-filter tables restrict access to specific IP addresses and sub-networks.
With Radmin software your helpdesk technicians can remotely control user PC anywhere on a LAN, WAN or the Internet. Radmin is extremely popular among telecommuters and mobile travelers and widely used by big corporations for the network management and helpdesk.
Cyberduck is an open source FTP client.
With an easy to use interface, connect to FTP (File Transfer Protocol), SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer), WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning), Amazon S3, Google Storage, Windows Azure, Rackspace Cloud Files and even Google Docs.
Cyberduck includes a bookmark manager and supports the Mac OS X Keychain and Bonjour networking.
Wireshark is the world's foremost network protocol analyzer. It lets you capture and interactively browse the traffic running on a computer network. It is the de facto (and often de jure) standard across many industries and educational institutions.
Wireshark has a rich feature set which includes the following:
-Deep inspection of hundreds of protocols, with more being added all the time -Live capture and offline analysis -Standard three-pane packet browser -Multi-platform: Runs on Windows, Linux, OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and many others -Captured network data can be browsed via a GUI, or via the TTY-mode TShark utility -The most powerful display filters in the industry -Rich VoIP analysis -Read/write many different capture file formats: tcpdump (libpcap), Pcap NG, Catapult DCT2000, Cisco Secure IDS iplog, Microsoft Network Monitor, Network General Sniffer® (compressed and uncompressed), Sniffer® Pro, and NetXray®, Network Instruments Observer, NetScreen snoop, Novell LANalyzer, RADCOM WAN/LAN Analyzer, Shomiti/Finisar Surveyor, Tektronix K12xx, Visual Networks Visual UpTime, WildPackets EtherPeek/TokenPeek/AiroPeek, and many others -Capture files compressed with gzip can be decompressed on the fly -Live data can be read from Ethernet, IEEE 802.11, PPP/HDLC, ATM, Bluetooth, USB, Token Ring, Frame Relay, FDDI, and others (depending on your platform) -Decryption support for many protocols, including IPsec, ISAKMP, Kerberos, SNMPv3, SSL/TLS, WEP, and WPA/WPA2 -Coloring rules can be applied to the packet list for quick, intuitive analysis -Output can be exported to XML, PostScript®, CSV, or plain text
The Debian Project is an association of individuals who have made common cause to create a free operating system. This operating system that we have created is called Debian.
An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. At the core of an operating system is the kernel. The kernel is the most fundamental program on the computer and does all the basic housekeeping and lets you start other programs.
Debian systems currently use the Linux kernel or the FreeBSD kernel. Linux is a piece of software started by Linus Torvalds and supported by thousands of programmers worldwide. FreeBSD is an operating system including a kernel and other software.
However, work is in progress to provide Debian for other kernels, primarily for the Hurd. The Hurd is a collection of servers that run on top of a microkernel (such as Mach) to implement different features. The Hurd is free software produced by the GNU project.
A large part of the basic tools that fill out the operating system come from the GNU project; hence the names: GNU/Linux, GNU/kFreeBSD, and GNU/Hurd. These tools are also free.
Of course, the thing that people want is application software: programs to help them get what they want to do done, from editing documents to running a business to playing games to writing more software. Debian comes with over 51000 packages (precompiled software that is bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine), a package manager (APT), and other utilities that make it possible to manage thousands of packages on thousands of computers as easily as installing a single application. All of it free.
It's a bit like a tower. At the base is the kernel. On top of that are all the basic tools. Next is all the software that you run on the computer. At the top of the tower is Debian — carefully organizing and fitting everything so it all works together.
VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.
Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and Solaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4, 2.6, 3.x and 4.x), Solaris and OpenSolaris, OS/2, and OpenBSD.
Virtualbox is available in 28 languages.
Bulk Crap Uninstaller (in short BCUninstaller or BCU) is a free (as in speech and beer) bulk program uninstaller with advanced automation. It excels at removing large amounts of applications with minimal to no user input, while requiring next to no technical knowledge.
It can detect most applications and games (even portable or not registered), clean up leftovers, force uninstall, automatically uninstall according to premade lists, and much more.
Features: Detect, manage and quietly uninstall Hidden/protected registered applications Applications with damaged or missing uninstallers Portable applications (might have to point BCU where to look) Chocolatey packages Oculus games/apps Steam games/apps Windows Features Windows Store apps (Universal Windows Platform apps) Windows Updates Fast, automatic uninstall Uninstall any number of applications in a single batch Minimal to no user input is required during uninstallation Uninstall multiple items at once to speed up the process (with collision prevention) Console interface can automatically uninstall applications based on conditions with no user input Quietly uninstall many uninstallers that don’t support silent uninstallation Uninstall applications even if they don’t have any uninstallers Uninstall applications by window, shortcut or directory Can handle crashing and hanging uninstallers
Other features Find and remove leftovers after uninstallation Clean Program Files directories from unused or empty folders Manually uninstall any application, bypasing it’s uninstaller (Force uninstall) Startup manager Application ratings Huge amount of data about applications is collected and displayed. User can freely browse, filter and export everything Filtering with common presets or based on fully custom rules with Regex support Verification of uninstaller certificates Large amount of configurability Can run user-specified commands before and after uninstalling Fully portable, settings are saved to a single file
htop is an interactive process viewer for Linux. It is a text-mode application (for console or X terminals) and requires ncurses. htop is an interactive top replacement that runs in the terminal. The available columns are: PID, STATE, PPID, PGRP, SESSION, TTY_NR, TPGID, MINFLT, CMINFLT, MAJFLT, CMAJFLT, UTIME, STIME, CUTIME, CSTIME, PRIORITY, NICE, STARTTIME, PROCESSOR, M_SIZE, M_RESIDENT, M_SHARE, M_TRS, M_DRS, M_LRS, M_DT, ST_UID, PERCENT_CPU, PERCENT_MEM, USER, TIME, NLWP, TGID, CTID, VPID, VXID, RCHAR, WCHAR, SYSCR, SYSCW, RBYTES, WBYTES, CNCLWB, IO_READ_RATE, IO_WRITE_RATE, IO_RATE, CGROUP, OOM, IO_PRIORITY
Comparison between htop and top
- In 'htop' you can scroll the list vertically and horizontally to see all processes and complete command lines.
- In 'top' you are subject to a delay for each unassigned key you press (especially annoying when multi-key escape sequences are triggered by accident).
- 'htop' starts faster ('top' seems to collect data for a while before displaying anything).
- In 'htop' you don't need to type the process number to kill a process, in 'top' you do.
- In 'htop' you don't need to type the process number or the priority value to renice a process, in 'top' you do.
- 'htop' supports mouse operation, 'top' doesn't
- 'top' is older, hence, more used and tested.
GNU Midnight Commander is a visual file manager, licensed under GNU General Public License and therefore qualifies as Free Software. Its a feature rich full-screen text mode application that allows you to copy, move and delete files and whole directory trees, search for files and run commands in the subshell. Internal viewer and editor are included.
Midnight Commander is based on versatile text interfaces, such as Ncurses or S-Lang, which allows it to work on a regular console, inside an X Window terminal, over SSH connections and all kinds of remote shells.
WinSCP is a popular free SFTP and FTP client for Windows. Moreover, WinSCP is a powerful multi-functional tool that will improve your productivity.
WinSCP can copy files between a local and remote computer using multiple protocols: FTP, FTPS, SCP, SFTP or WebDAV. On the one hand, WinSCP offers an easy to use graphical user interface; you can choose between Windows Explorer look and tabbed twin-panel interface like Norton commander. On the other hand, advanced users can automate WinSCP functionality using .NET assembly or simple batch file scripting.
You will use WinSCP for all common operations with files. You can start editing a file directly from WinSCP, either using WinSCP internal text editor or using integration with your favorite external text editor. WinSCP operations are not limited to individual files; WinSCP offers several ways to synchronize your remote and local directories.
After connecting to a site you can choose to store site information for repeated access, WinSCP can even share site settings with another popular open source tool PuTTY. WinSCP integrates also with Pageant (PuTTY authentication agent) for full support of public key authentication with SSH.
Admins love WinSCP support for portable operation using a configuration file instead of registry entries, suitable for operation from removable media.
A comprehensive WinSCP documentation is freely accessible at http://winscp.net. This site hosts also a very active user forum for support and feature requests.
WinSCP is available in English and many other languages.
WinSCP is an open source software distributed free of charge under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
