get a laptop, a usb thumb drive with a minimum size of 2GB (& internet) (tip: you might already have a computer and internet, when you can read this text)
then
mplayer http://santa.fnord.cx/mu51c/the_prodigy_-_invaders_must_die.mp3 && exit
now open a second terminal and download the backtrack 4 beta iso, or wget it
cd /tmp && wget http://remote-exploit.org/cgi-bin/fileget?version=bt4-beta-iso
or if the first one does not work, try this one
cd /tmp && wget http://backtrack.unixheads.org/bt4-beta.iso
(if both of them won't start downloading, don't worry and just start “wget” again some seconds later and it should work, or try the unl33t link)
meanwhile we could start cleaning and formatting our usb drive
remember theat you have to be root to perform the most steps in this howto.
insert the usb drive, then type
cat /proc/partitions
to find your usb drive, which should output something like
8 16 2015232 sdb 8 17 2013729 sdb1
to cleanup the stick, and overwrite the data with a random pattern you can make
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdb
if you want to check for bad blocks while writing you can use badblocks. the badblocks command will check your disk for bad blocks while writing random data. the pseudorandom algorithm used by this command is faster (although “less random”) than /dev/urandom, so it can be useful for large disks.
badblocks -s -w -t random -v /dev/sdb
now you can use fdisk to clean up your partition table
fdisk /dev/sdb
Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sdb: 2063 MB, 2063597568 bytes 64 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1015 cylinders Units = cylinders of 3968 * 512 = 2031616 bytes Disk identifier: 0xb8b945f9 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
if you have any partitions in here, delete them, using “d”, until it looks like the output above, and you have no more partitions on your usb.
! but be careful, you only delete partitions of your stick, not of your system !
Command (m for help): d Partition number (1-4):
your disk should be clean now, and you can start creating your new partitions …
you can start creating your new partitions, by typing “n”
the first partition will be vfat and contain our bt4
Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-1015, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder, +cylinders or +size{K,M,G} (1-1015, default 1015): +1024M
the second partition will be ext2. this is where our changes are going to be stored.
Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 2
First cylinder (531-1015, default 531):
Using default value 531
Last cylinder, +cylinders or +size{K,M,G} (531-1015, default 1015):
Using default value 1015
now it is time to make your fat32 partition “t”
Command (m for help): t Partition number (1-4): 1 Hex code (type L to list codes): b Changed system type of partition 1 to b (W95 FAT32)
toggle the bootflag with “a”
Command (m for help): a Partition number (1-4): 1
and a final look to the tables “p”
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 1 594 1178465 b W95 FAT32 /dev/sdb2 595 1015 835264 83 Linux
everything looks good so lets write these changes to the drive. type “w” and enter
for the first partition
mkfs -t vfat -n BT4 /dev/sdb1
and for the second partition
mkfs -t ext3 -b 4096 -L casper /dev/sdb2
create a directory
mkdir -v /tmp/bt4
and mount the iso to it
mount -v -o loop /tmp/bt4-beta.iso /tmp/bt4
create another directory
mkdir /tmp/usb
and mount the first volume to it
mount -v /dev/sdb1 /tmp/usb/
and copy the files
cp -rfv /tmp/bt4/* /tmp/usb
or
dd if=/dev/loop0 of=/dev/sdb1
meanwhile you can open a new terminal and …
mplayer http://santa.fnord.cx/mu51c/the_prodigy_-_thunder.mp3 && exit
when your done with copying files, make it bootable
/tmp/usb/boot/bootinst.sh
make a third directory
mkdir -v /tmp/changes
mount the second partition of your usb to it
mount -v /dev/sdb2 /tmp/changes
and create the changes directory
mkdir -v /tmp/changes/changes
cd into syslinux
cd /tmp/usb/boot/syslinux
and change some rights
chmod +Xx lilo -v chmod +Xx syslinux -v
or more brutal
chmod 777 lilo -v chmod 777 syslinux -v
and finally
vim syslinux.cfg
and paste all of the following to line 5, after “DEFAULT”
LABEL BT4 MENU LABEL BT4 Beta - DARE changes KERNEL /boot/vmlinuz APPEND initrd=/boot/initrd.gz ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw quiet changes=/dev/sdb2 vga=0x317
when you are finished press escape
esc
type
:wq
and hit enter to write the changes to file.
unmount the volumes
umount -v /tmp/changes umount -v /tmp/bt4
and delete the evidence ;)
rm -rfv /tmp/changes rm -rfv /tmp/bt4 rm -fv /tmp/bt4-beta.iso
and finally
reboot