Coyote Linux Linux Internet Security Software

3Jan/100

Coyote Linux 4.0 base OS downloads

The base operating system images for the Coyote Linux 4.0 Security Appliance have been added to the downloads section of the site. The downloads contain a live CD image and a VMWare appliance image based on OpenSUSE 11.2 and contain all of the required software to run the upcoming Coyote Linux security administration services and front-end. These images are being release as technology previews only and do not contain a fully functional release of the Coyote Linux security software.

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24Nov/090

Coyote switching to Suse Studio for base OS

After much tinkering around with OpenEmebedded as well as RPath Linux and OpenSuse/Suse Studio, I have switched my development platform to Suse Studio. For those unaware of this marvel of technology, it is a web site that allows the creation of a customized "JeOS" (Just Enough Operating System) installation of Linux based on the Suse distribution. RPath would have been my first choice as they have multiple base distros and allow for a switch from 32 to 64 bit when building an individual appliance - but I found their web interface and service to be way too buggy.

In addition to the more stable appliance creation interface, Novell owns and operates Suse Studio and both the Suse distribution and Mono - the .net platform is very well integrated.

The use of Suse Studio / openSuse for development will save me an estimated 6 months of work over the course of the Coyote 4 development cycle (This is about the amount of time that was spent between each major release of Wolverine on the underlying custom Linux distro).

The drawback to using Suse as the core OS is the size of the installation. The base OS for Coyote 4 will be approximately 50 time larger than that of Coyote 3 and 500 time larger than Coyote 1 and 2 (which fit on a floppy). However, Coyote 4 will eventually include a full graphical console for administration, a remote web service for 3rd party applications and services to interact with, and will be capable of running many additional services. The use of a full distribution as the base for Coyote will also allow me to focus directly on the security features of the product and leave general system setup and configuration to the underlying Linux install - this will allow for a much greater array of hardware support than previously available. Approximate installation size at this time is around 500MB - however, with the cost of a 4GB flash drive being less than $20, the cost of storage capacity (even for small appliances) was not a deciding factor in my choice of base installations.

~Josh

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22Sep/090

Coyote Linux development update

It has been several months since I posted anything about Coyote Linux and the state of its development. When I originally started using Open Embedded to create the initial install images for Coyote, everything went smoothly right up to the point of integrating Mono. The versions of Mono available in OE at the time lacked the necessary features to run Coyote and after several weeks of fighting to get a current build to work properly with OE, I set the project down for a while. I now notice that the latest release of Mono is part of the default OE build so I will take another crack and building Coyote using OE. If it works properly, I will continue using OE for future development - otherwise I have also been tinkering around with rPath Linux. My ultimate goal is to provide a simple, easy to install, and easily updated version of Coyote where the bulk of my development time can be spent on the product features and not the core Linux system itself.

Very sorry for the delay in updates and releases. During the time I have not been working on Coyote Linux itself, I have been working on the software distribution, licensing, and community web sites that will be deployed along with Coyote Linux 4. As Coyote 4 will take a dual license approach to distribution (community and commercial releases), I have also spent a great deal of time and effort making sure that the sales and distribution channels for future releases are much more user friendly and accessible than they were with previous releases of Wolverine for both the end user and resellers. The hardware product line available for Coyote 4 will be much more in-line with other competing products in the small to mid-sized security market.

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24Mar/090

OpenEmbedded chosen for Coyote builds

I have chosen to use BitBake / OpenEmbedded as the base buildroot for Coyote Linux v4.0. Previous versions of Coyote Linux used either a custom chroot environment or required a particular distribution to be used as the development platform. With the use of BitBake/OE, it should be possible to build Coyote Linux to target multiple different architectures and machine configurations using nearly any Linux distribution as the development machine OS.

I will release a custom OE build tree shortly so that others can start working with or developing for Coyote Linux. If you happen to already be familiar with either OE or BitBake and would like to be involved in the development of Coyote 4, please send me an email at jjackson [at] vortech [dot] net. I am specifically looking for someone that would like to help with the BitBake tasks and packages for Mono and/or PHP.

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14Mar/090

Embedded Firewall Prototyping System

The following are some images of a system which was assembled to facilitate the prototyping of embedded firewall appliances for Coyote Linux. The embedded systems used are made by Soekris Engineering.

The system consists of a Core2 Duo based computer running CentOS 5.3 and 3 external Soekris appliances (net4501, net4801, and net5501). The internal system power supply is used to provide 12v DC power to the external appliances via a relay board and a series of external power switches.  The networking for the system contains 3 discreet LANs which are connected to 5 port hubs mounted in the 5.25" bays in the main system.

The consoles of each of the external appliances are connected to the main system via USB to RS232 conversion cables.

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11Mar/090

Coyote Linux is on FaceBook

If you are a FaceBook user, you can show your support for Coyote Linux by visiting our FB profile and becoming a fan. To visit our FB profile, click here. I will post additional information and send fan updates about Coyote as the distribution continues to develop.

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22Feb/091

Coyote 4 Screen Shots

I have added a page to the top menu which contains some screen shots of the web admin which will be included in Coyote Linux v4.00. The new web admin uses a multi-tiered architecture which includes a Mono (http://mono-project.org) powered front-end web site and web service back-end. The separation of the web site from a web-service based application that performs the actual system configuration will allow for 3rd party applications to be developed for controlling the Coyote Linux based security devices.

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4Feb/092

Wolverine 2.10.1062 Available for Download

Wolverine 2.10 build 1062 has been released and is available for download from this site. This build of Wolverine does not require activation and all features are available for use without the need to purchase an additional license. This release is the last version of Wolverine that will be made available. Future releases of Coyote Linux will contain all of the features present in this release. Other than the removal of the activation requirement, there are no other feature changes present in this release of Wolverine. To download Wolverine, please use the Downloads link from the menu at the top of the page.

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24Jan/090

Coyote Linux Forums Imported

After several hours and an equal number of Ibuprofen from beating my head into my desk, I managed to get all of the old Coyote Linux forum threads imported. The forums now cover the last 10 years of Coyote Linux history and contain over 40,000 post. I have also added the Wolverine Firewall and VPN server forum as the Wolverine project will be getting merged back into the Coyote Linux project over the course of the next week or so. I will post downloads for Wolverine to the Coyote Linux site shortly. If you run into any broken posts or missing content in the forums, feel free to report it and I will attempt to get it corrected.

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23Jan/090

Coyote Linux Forums Online

After a couple years of downtime, I have brought the Coyote Linux forums back online. I have not imported the old post data as of yet due to very different database structures with the new forum software and the fact that the old data is a mess. After having to hand-prune thousands of spammer comments out of the old forum databases, there are tons of orphaned records and broken posts. As time permits, I will attempt to get the data cleaned up and imported.

The old user database will not be imported, however. The password hashing mechanisms are not compatible and I have no way of setting the passwords correctly on any imported accounts. If you would like to post to the new forums, please take a few moments and create a new account. Please also note that (at this time), the user accounts created on this site and the forums sites are separate. If you create an account on one, you will still need to create an account on the other in order to log in.

You can access the forums at http://forums.coyotelinux.com or from the link in the right-hand menu on this page.

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