How to set up NISNET under Ubuntu

On a freshly installed Ubuntu system (in ths case installed from a disk containing the Ubuntu-6.06-desktop-i386.iso), first you need to load a number of package

First get a suitable editor:

   sudo apt-get install emacs21

Next prepare for secure remote access:

   sudo apt-get install iptables ssh

Next get the kernel sources - so that you have the needed include files. Make the existing kernel configuration and build a kernel.

   sudo apt-get install linux-source-2.6.15
   cd /usr/src
   sudo tar -xjf linux-source-2.6.15.tar.bz2
   sudo ln -sf linux-source-2.6.15 linux
   sudo apt-get install kernel-package linbcurses5-dev
   cd /usr/src/linux
   sudo make oldconfig

At this point you can adapte the kernel configuration for what your computer needs, then build a new kernel. Note the "-initrd" flag to create the RAM disk image which is needed when booting using grub.

   sudo make-kpkg -initrd kernel-image
   sudo dpkg -i kernel-image-2.6.15.7-ubuntu1_10.00.Custom_i386.deb

   This produced a kernel named: 2.6.15.7-ubuntu1

Get the X11 include files:

   sudo apt-get install xlibs-dev
   sudo apt-get install libxaw-headers
   sudo apt-get install libxaw7-dev
   sudo apt-get install xaw3dg-dev

   sudo apt-get install qt3-doc qt3-dev-tools qt3-apps-dev
   sudo apt-get install lsb-cxx

To fix the following problems with compiling of knistnet:

   /home/maguire/nistnet-3.0a/kernel/knistnet.c:916: error: too few arguments to function ippt->func
   /home/maguire/nistnet-3.0a/kernel/knistnet.c:961: error: too few arguments to function ippt->func
   /home/maguire/nistnet-3.0a/kernel/knistnet.c:972: error: too few arguments to function ippt->func
   /home/maguire/nistnet-3.0a/kernel/knistnet.c:1003: error: too few arguments to function ippt->func

you simply need to add another argument to the call, so that it looks like:

   return ippt->func(skb, dev, ippt, NULL);

After doing the 'make' and 'make install', I cheated and manually added a line to the file /lib/modules/2.6.15.7-ubuntu1/modules.dep

   /lib/modules/2.6.15.7-ubuntu1/extra/nistnet.ko:

Thus the modprobe in the Load.Nistnet now finds the nistnet module.

If you get error messages: saying

error: syntax error before KBUILD_BASENAME

Change nistnet/Config: EXTRA_CFLAGS += $(OURINCS) $(DEVDEFS) -fno-common
to
EXTRA_CFLAGS += $(OURINCS) $(DEVDEFS) -fno-common -DKBUILD_MODNAME=\"nistnet\" -DKBUILD_BASENAME=\"nistnet\"

See http://www.ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-192942.html for details.

An alternative to building the new kernel is to set up the dependencies information:

cd /usr/src/linux
    - or wherever the kernel source is
make oldconfig
    - exit and save
make dep

For further details see: http://www-x.antd.nist.gov/nistnet/install.html

If you get the following error at runtime, upon starting xnistnet:

globalstatnistnet: No such file or directory

and then when trying to insert a new rule after clicking the update button:

util_binaddnistnet: No such file or directory
Error adding 192.168.0.1 -> 192.168.10.1: addnistnet: Illegal seek

then there are a number of /dev files missing to recreate them do (as root) :

mknod /dev/hitbox c 62 0
mknod /dev/nistnet c 62 1
chown root /dev/hitbox
chown root /dev/nistnet
mknod /dev/mungebox c 63 0
chown root /dev/mungebox
mknod /dev/spybox c 64 0
chown root /dev/spybox

For further details see http://www.mail-archive.com/nistnet@antd.nist.gov/msg00141.html