What is Linux Kernel? Explained in Layman’s Terms

There are so many Linux distributions out in the wild, but there is only one de facto thing that they have in common: the Linux kernel. But while it’s often talked about, a lot of people don’t really know exactly what it does.

Let’s take a look at what the Linux kernel really does and why it’s needed, with as few geeky terms as possible.

What’s a Kernel?

Each operating system uses a kernel. Without a kernel, you can’t have an operating system that actually works. Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux all have kernels, and they’re all different. It’s the kernel that also does the grunt work of the operating system. Besides the kernel, there are a lot of applications that are bundled with the kernel to make the entire package something useful — more on that a bit later.

The kernel’s job is to talk to the hardware and software, and to manage the system’s resources as best as possible. It talks to the hardware via the drivers that are included in the kernel (or additionally installed later on in the form of a kernel module). This way, when an application wants to do something (say change the volume setting of the speakers), it can just submit that request to the kernel, and the kernel can use the driver it has for the speakers to actually change the volume.

The kernel is highly involved in resource management. It has to make sure that there is enough memory available for an application to run, as well as to place an application in the right location in memory. It tries to optimize the usage of the processor so that it can complete tasks as quickly as possible. It also aims to avoid deadlocks, which are problems that completely halt the system when one application needs a resource that another application is using. It’s a fairly complicated circus act to coordinate all of those things, but it needs to be done and that’s what the kernel is for.

What Else Makes Up An Operating System?

Like I mentioned earlier, operating systems include their own kernel along with a bunch of other applications. With just a kernel, it’s nearly impossible to do anything with the operating system. You also need some other applications to be bundled with it, such as a shell. The shell is responsible for displaying the prompt that you see in terminals or command lines. Shells are a much easier way to launch applications, navigate through folders, and much more. All of those tasks that you can do in a shell are supported via other applications that must be bundled as well. For example, the tar application is needed if you’re working with tarballs in a shell.

Operating systems, particularly Linux distributions, then continue to bundle more applications, such as a desktop environment, a web browser, an office suite, and other applications that you often interact with directly. So as you can see, the kernel is just a very small portion of an operating system, but it’s arguably the most crucial one.

Linux History

How long has the Linux kernel been around? It was first created by a Finnish student named Linus Torvalds in 1991. He sent out an email to a mailing list saying, “Hello everybody out there using minix — I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386 (486) AT clones.” Over the course of over two decades, the hobby operating system has turned into a major piece of software that now powers millions of devices all over the world.

During this time, Linus decided to license the kernel using the GPL license, meaning that it was open source. People were free to look at the code, modify it to their needs, and then distribute it to others (under the same license).

Hope you like this article.

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What Are The Basic Steps For Becoming Hacker ?

Hacking is a type of computer skill that can use to gain access personal computer and files without admin permission. Most of teenager wants to make a career in Hacking. Likewise, they want to become a cyber security expert. Today we are going to share some point's that are very useful to become cyber security expert.

How to Become a Haker

Yes, hacking is a crime, but it’s depending on you why do you want to do, for good work or bad. Our openion for you, choose always good work. And if you want to go through wrong side then it’s your choice. How big hacker you’re one-day cyber security expert will definitely track you. So, do always good job not bad. In cyber world, there are three types of hackers.

1. White Hat (Ethical Hackers):- These are those people who did their job for a government organization. They're using their computer skill for doing a good work. Like protecting user data from cyber criminals, finding the bug in security system etc. They always did a good job. 

2. Grey Hat:- These types of hackers do good and bad things. In simple meaning, these are those people who not in the side of white hat hacker or not inside of black hat hackers. 

3. Black Hat:- These are the bad guys you can call them cyber criminals who always want to do illegal things.

These are the main category of hackers. Now it’s your choice where you want to go. Want to do well, or want to mix bad and good or only want to bad. 

Coming to the main point, hacking is not easy in today time. Most of the websites and device are encrypted by 128-bit and 256-bit encryption. In past, encryption is used but not in a way like this. Now maximum device and websites are protected by high-end encryption. For a normal computer, doesn’t possible to break that encryption. That doesn’t mean you can’t hack anything. Below are the basics steps for starting a career in cyber security. 

Kali Linux 2017 Logo

1. You have to start with basics network concepts like cryptography, networks protocols, and data layers. 

2. Gain knowledge about spy, worms, key logger how all these Trojan works.

3. You also have to aware about proxy, online proxy, VPN how these tools hide your online identity. 

4. If you want to start hacking, privacy is very important. Start using Tor onion root browser and learn about it. This is the securest browser in the world. 

5. Start learning programming language Python, C, C++. These are very important language when you want to run a command or want to make any type of software. 

6. The main concept in hacking is Kali Linux. It is one of the best-operating systems design for hacking. It offers offensive security that use to protect your system from online threat. It has more than 600 inbuilt tools that are useful in hacking. Some of most popular tools are penetration testing stress testing, air cracks hydra etc. Python language is used in  Kali Linux command shell. Learn this language if you want to know more about Kali.

These are some basics step for start learning about hacking. If you want to go deeper in hacking choose networking course. In our next article, we will give you a deep introduction about Kali Linux. 

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HOW TO HACK WIFI HOTSPOTS WITH LINUX

Hacking Wifi Hotspot by CyberFoxes

How does it work?

You all know that moment: the happy moment that you find a public hotspot followed with the dissapointment because of a pop-up thats asks for a login-code.
Everyones #1 frustration, atleast it is mine. Now you can either be a nice guy and buy one of those cards, or you can be stubborn and try to hack stuff.
We’re going for the second one.

The security on these hotspots are usually based on MAC-addresses.
The router has already been set-up to decide which computers can and cannot use the internet.
During the login process, access is given to the internet with a code: your MAC-address is being saved in a sort of database.
This will stay there for a couple of hours, depending on how much you payed for. After these hours are over,
the MAC-address will be automaticaly removed from the database that’s from the router, and your access to the internet will be removed.

If you don’t have one of these cards, you won’t be able to use the internet either.
But you are however connected to the network (Atleast the connection to the network that connects you to the login page.)
You might feel it coming already, you can pry/spy into the network! What we will do isn’t really difficult and I will sum it up in three steps:

1. Look which devices are connected to the network (Which MAC-addresses have internet.)
2. Change your MAC-address to a MAC-address with access to the internet.
3. Re-connect to the Access Point, the Hotspot.

Once you connect to the network again, the router will recognize you as an user that paid to
use the internet and it will grant you access to the internet.

Execution
It’s best if you have Linux to execute this. I myself use Kali Linux, but any distro should work.

Open your terminal, we will turn off our wlan interface. Type:

Code:

ifconfig wlan0 down

Now we will put our network interface in a monitor mode:

Code:

iwconfig wlan0 mode monitor

And now we will check if that actually happened:

Code:

iwconfig

Now we will look for all networks nearby you. These networks will then be shown with a BSSID MAC-address.

Code:

airodump-ng wlan0

Wait a while untill your ‘target network’ appears and then copy the BSSID that belongs to it.
Then press CTRL+C to stop airodump-ng. Otherwise it will endlessly continue to search for networks.

Now we will look for every device on the network.
The devices are the computers that are connected to the network and are shown in the form of a MAC-address.
It can take a while before these computers are found. It’s important to wait a while to see which MAC-address has alot of traffic.
This is the one that we will use, copy the MAC-address.

Code:

airodump-ng -bssid [MAC ADDRESS OF THE NETWORK HERE] wlan0

Then:

Code:

ifconfig wlan0 down

And then we can change our MAC-address to the one which you choose:

Code:

maccchanger -m [MAC ADDRESS OF THE COMPUTER WHICH YOU CHOSE] wlan0

Now you will get a verification that your MAC-address has changed.
If you successfully did this, we will change our interface again in ‘manage mode’:

Code:

iwconfig wlan0 mode manage

Then turn on our WiFi-adapter again:

Code:

ifconfig wlan0 up

Check to see if it’s on:

Code:

ifconfig

Now you will go to the network interface GUI. Connect again with your Hotspot and you can enjoy your free internet.

Conclusion:
As you can see you can have access to the internet in a few easy steps.
The way around the security in this way is much faster and the chance to succeed is much faster than the standard way of WEP/WPA2 hacking.

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