Getting the BackTrack menu structure (and tools) in Ubuntu

NOTE: I have moved this code to GitHub.

UPDATE [11-7-2010]: It is *best* to use the actual BackTrack distribution due to the patches and optimizations they make to the kernel. Patching the standard Ubuntu kernel would make it no longer *Ubuntu*. I’d highly suggest you either:

1. Install BackTrack on a real or virtual machine environment
2. Manually download and install the security tools you need to use on your system.

————-

I recently outlined how to install all the BackTrack tools on your Ubuntu system. It’s a pretty easy process these days because BackTrack is Debian based. However, by default, BackTrack uses KDE, and therefore all of the tools, when installed in Ubuntu with Gnome show up in the “Other” folder as just one big really long list of tools.

There also were problems with launching the tools from the menu, because often times you’d get the error message below:

That’s not very helpful, so I have done a little work and gotten the BackTrack tools AND menu structure within Ubuntu 9.10. I’ve also written a Perl script that will fix the error message above.

So, here’s a brief overview of the steps in this lengthy blog post:

1. Prepare the GNOME menu with the appropriate BackTrack menu structure
2. Install BackTrack 4 tools within Ubuntu
3. Run a Perl script to update the newly created menu entries so that they will launch a terminal correctly within Ubuntu

Here’s a quick preview of the finished product:

NOTE: This involves modifying your current GNOME menu settings, and could cause issues with your menu if done incorrectly. Make a backup first, and note that this worked on my system, but your mileage may vary!

The first step before installing any of the tools is to prepare the GNOME menu. Open up a shell:

sudo cp /etc/xdg/menus/applications.menu /etc/xdg/menus/applications.menu.original
sudo geany /etc/xdg/menus/applications.menu

Note that I am using the application Geany, which is a programmer’s editor for Linux, much like Notepad++ for Windows. You can use gedit if you’d prefer, but Geany may help you in modifying this XML file because it offers code folding and syntax highlighting.

If you opened it with Geany, click on the Document menu, Select Set Filetype, select Markup Languages, and then finally select XML Document.

With Geany, I find it easiest to collapse the menu blocks for the other sub-menus within Gnome’s Applications menu.

After collapsing the System Tools section, paste the following XML directly after it. This will define the BackTrack menu’s and submenu’s:

NOTE that because of the length, I have moved the XML code to a new post. Please obtain the BackTrack menu XML from this post.

After updating this with the BackTrack XML, you may now save and close the document.

At this point, we can follow the instructions in my previous post to install the BackTrack utilities.

Let’s begin by launching a root bash shell by typing:

sudo bash

The next step is to add the BackTrack repositories to your apt-get sources.list file:

1. Add the Backtrack repository:

sudo echo deb http://repo.offensive-security.com/dist/bt4 binary/ >> /etc/apt/sources.list

2. Import the Backtrack PGP key and update your sources (and set a proxy server to use if you need it):

export http_proxy="http://myproxyserver.com:8080"
wget http://repo.offensive-security.com/dist/bt4/binary/public-key && sudo apt-key add public-key && sudo aptitude update

3. Build your package list (NOTE that I am specifying a proxy server — remove this part from the command if you do not use a proxy):

links -http-proxy myproxyserver.com:8080 -dump http://repo.offensive-security.com/dist/bt4/binary/ | awk '{print $3}' | grep -i deb | cut -d . -f 1 > backtrack.txt

If you do not use a proxy server, then the command will look like this:

links -dump http://repo.offensive-security.com/dist/bt4/binary/ | awk '{print $3}' | grep -i deb | cut -d . -f 1 > backtrack.txt

4. Install packages:

for i in $(cat backtrack.txt); do sudo aptitude -y install $i; done

Credit for the BackTrack menu settings goes to or4n9e at Remote Exploit’s forums.

Next, we need to run a Perl script to ensure that the newly installed applications can be correctly executed from our GNOME Applications menu.

Copy the following code and save it to a file. I saved mine to a file called UpdateBTMenu.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
##
# Written by Mick Grove
# https://micksmix.wordpress.com
#
#  [v0.1]		11/20/2009
##
#
# BSD Licensed
#
#       Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
#       modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
#       met:
#
#       * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
#         notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
#       * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
#         copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer
#         in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
#         distribution.
#       * Neither the name of the  nor the names of its
#         contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
#         this software without specific prior written permission.
#
#       THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
#       "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
#       LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
#       A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT
#       OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
#       SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
#       LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
#       DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
#       THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
#       (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
#       OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
#
#
use strict;
use warnings;
use Tie::File;

my $dir     = "/usr/local/share/applications";
my $section = "Desktop Entry";
my $in_section;
my @files;

opendir(BIN, $dir) or die "Can't open $dir: $!";
while (defined(my $file = readdir BIN))
{
    next if $file =~ /^\.\.?$/;    # skip . and ..
    if ($file =~ m/.*\.desktop$/i)
    {
        push(@files, $file);
    }
}
closedir(BIN);

foreach my $curfile (@files)
{
    open( FH, "<", "$dir/$curfile" ) or die "$!";
    chomp( my @fileparts =  );

    my $termval = TerminalStatus(\@fileparts);
    next if $termval eq 0;    # skip if this is not a terminal application

    #lets see if this is actually a BT program
    my $btprogram = IsBTProgram(\@fileparts);
    next if $btprogram == 0;    # skip if this is not a BT application

    my $ExecKey     = "Exec";
    my $TerminalKey = "Terminal";
    my @tiedfile;

    #open this file for editing
    tie @tiedfile, 'Tie::File', "$dir/$curfile" or die "$!";

    #read file line by line here
    # updating "Exec" line
    foreach my $fline (@tiedfile)
    {
        next if $fline =~ /^#/;       # skip comments
        next if $fline =~ /^\s*$/;    # skip empty lines

        if ($fline =~ /^\[$section\]$/)
        {
            $in_section = 1;
            next;
        }

        if ($fline =~ /^\[/)
        {
            $in_section = 0;
            next;
        }

        my $oldline;
        my $updatedline;
        if ($in_section and $fline =~ /^$ExecKey\s*=\s*(.*)$/)
        {

            # this means we have the "Exec key"
            $oldline = $1;
            next if $oldline =~ m/^.*xterm -e.*;bash.*$/i;    #skip
            $oldline =~ s/"/\\"/img;
            $updatedline = "Exec=xterm -e \"$oldline;bash\"";
            $fline       = $updatedline;

            print "New exec: " . $fline . "\n";
            next;
        }
        elsif ($in_section and $fline =~ /^$TerminalKey\s*=\s*(.*)$/)
        {

            # this means we have the "Terminal key"
            # we will set it to "0" to turn it off --- we are launching
            #   xterm ourselves, if we set to 1, we'll get an extra
            #   terminal opened
            #
            $oldline     = $1;
            $updatedline = "Terminal=0";
            $fline       = $updatedline;
            next;
        }

    }
    untie @tiedfile;
}

print "\n\nAll menu entries have been updated\n";

###
### Subroutines ###
###
sub TerminalStatus
{
    my @lines       = @{$_[0]};
    my $TerminalKey = "Terminal";
    my $ExecKey     = "Exec";
    my $termkeyval  = 0;            #default = 0 FALSE, 1= TRUE
    my $i           = 0;
    my $execkeyval = 0;  #default = 0 = this exec line probably wasn't set by us

    foreach my $fline (@lines)
    {
        next if $fline =~ /^#/;       # skip comments
        next if $fline =~ /^\s*$/;    # skip empty lines

        if ($fline =~ /^\[$section\]$/)
        {
            $in_section = 1;
            next;
        }

        if ($fline =~ /^\[/)
        {
            $in_section = 0;
            next;
        }

        if ($in_section and $fline =~ /^$TerminalKey\s*=\s*(.*)$/)
        {

            # this means we have the "terminal key"
            $termkeyval = $1;
            next;    #last;
        }

        if ($in_section and $fline =~ /^$ExecKey\s*=\s*(.*)$/)
        {

            # this means we have the "exec key"
            $execkeyval = $1;
            if ($execkeyval =~ m/^.*xterm -e.*;bash.*$/i)
            {
                $execkeyval = 1;    # this script likely set this value before
            }
            next;                   #last;
        }
    }

    if ($execkeyval eq 1)
    {
        # force this to true, because this can be updated by this script,
        #   b/c we appear to have modified this entry before.
        $termkeyval = 1;
    }
    return $termkeyval;
}

sub IsBTProgram
{
    my @lines    = @{$_[0]};
    my $key      = "Categories";
    my $isbtprog = 0;              #default = FALSE = 0
    my $i        = 0;
    foreach my $fline (@lines) {
        next if $fline =~ /^#/;       # skip comments
        next if $fline =~ /^\s*$/;    # skip empty lines

        if ($fline =~ /^\[$section\]$/) {
            $in_section = 1;
            next;
        }

        if ($fline =~ /^\[/) {
            $in_section = 0;
            next;
        }
        if ($in_section and $fline =~ /^$key\s*=\s*(.*)$/)
        {

            # this means we have the "terminal key"
            if ($1 =~ m/.*BT-.*/i)
            {
                $isbtprog = 1;
            }
            last;
        }
    }
    return $isbtprog;
}

I saved that file to my home folder at /home/mick

Next we need to run the script, but first we will backup all menu files in case something goes wrong. Open up a terminal:

cd ~/
mkdir menu_backup
sudo cp /usr/local/share/applications/* ~/menu_backup

Now we have made a backup of the menus, so it is safe to run our Perl script now:

sudo perl ./UpdateBTMenu.pl

That’s it! Your BackTrack tools (with menu structure) are ready to use within Ubuntu!

If for some reason there was a problem with executing the Perl script or your menu isn’t working, you can copy the backed up menu items to their original location:

sudo cp ~/menu_backup/* /usr/local/share/applications/