Ask Slashdot: Good Tracking Solutions For Linux Laptop?

First time accepted submitter WillHPower writes "So I have ordered a new Ubuntu-powered laptop. I spent some extra bucks on lots of RAM and a good sized solid state drive. After putting money into it, I'd like to find a way to track this laptop in case it's ever stolen. Are there any good tracking software/services the run on Linux laptops? Also, are there any other techniques besides tracking for dealing with a lost or stolen laptop that I should consider?"

Prey

[Anonymous Coward]

http://preyproject.com/

Free but only partially useful solution

[Deathspawner]

Writing a bash script that automatically sends the laptop's current outbound IP address to a remote file is one idea. That would at least help you figure out to some degree there the laptop has been used from. It'd require law enforcement to go further than that, though...

Disk encryption

[bradley13]

Assuming you have valuable and/or personal data on the machine, don't forget disk encryption. Either encrypt the entire disk, or perhaps just the data partition. Truecrypt is a good solution for this.

Prey Project

[carlhaagen]

http://preyproject.com/ [preyproject.com]

Re:Have it log in with DynDNS and open a VPN to yo

[carlhaagen]

A plethora of solutions already do this, without the overhead of reinventing the wheel. Check out http://preyproject.com/ [preyproject.com]

Stop Theft Plates

[kullnd]

I'm a big fan of these - - They deter the actual theft before it happens.

http://www.stoptheft.com/ [stoptheft.com]

Re:No

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

No, there's no good Linux HW tracking software. Why? Cause there's no good software for other platforms either. It's all "make-you-feel-good-software" which doesn't survive a simple OS reinstallation...

It doesn't exactly give you the warm-and-fuzzies to know that this is possible; but some models have it baked right into the firmware. A suitably provisioned AMT 6+ device can do entertaining things like phone home and provide 'home' with an IP KVM, regardless of OS state.

Insurance

[L4t3r4lu5]

Encrypt the hard drive. Insure against theft. Forget about it if it's stolen.

Prey!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would recommend Prey: http://preyproject.com/blog/2011/04/its-official-prey-is-now-on-ubuntu

I have used it and it seems to work well. It's free for up to 3 machines too.

Re:Insurance

[auric_dude]

Please don't forget to make and test backups every now and then otherwise you may well have your insurance payout but no data.

Re:No

[gothzilla]

Sure there is. http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/services/prosupport/computrace?c=uk&l=en&cs=ukbsdr3 [dell.com] Computer will ship with the Laptop Tracking and Recovery software agent and a persistence module embedded in the BIOS. The software agent can survive operating system re-installations, hard drive reformats and even hard drive replacements. When a lost or stolen computer connects to the Internet, the software agent contacts the monitoring center to report the computer’s location. For systems with GPS technology included, Laptop Tracking and Recovery has the ability to capture and report more detailed location information. It also provides the ability to track your laptops as they change hands or move around the organization.

Re:Linux OS likely to be erased offline

[whoever57]

The first thing the theft will do: an offline OS installation.

Exactly. My daughter's Ubuntu laptop was stolen some years back. It was configured to start OpenVPN on boot-up. The VPN never connected after the theft, so I can safely conclude that it was never connected to the Internet while the original Linux install was present.

Re:Disk encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to use the bios (firmware) level tracking stuff. This is especially important when using a Linux based machine as anyone who takes it is simply going to format it or replace the drive and install Windows. Any scripts or crap you setup in the OS are gone.

PREY

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Prey is great. It is more effective than "Find My Mac" and runs on may platforms, including most Linuces. :-) Android, MacOS and iOS - besides teh usual vanilla from Redmond.

http://preyproject.com/ [preyproject.com]

From the FAQ:

Can Prey be removed by a thief?

Not unless he has your administrative password.

And what if he formats the computer?

That's a different story. We encourage you to add a BIOS password and disable booting from removable devices on your PC, so that the thief will be forced to boot into the previous installation and thus, not be able to format your hard disk easily.

If you have a Mac, there's a firmware password utility on your Tiger/Leopard Mac OS installation DVD (look for it in in Applications/Utilities). On OSX Lion you'll find the utility by booting from the recovery partition.

Re:No

[greg1104]

There's a list of where BIOS level Computrace is available on their BIOS compatibility [absolute.com] page.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

And security by obscurity is a fallacy.

1. No, it's not.
2. You ought to understand what a fallacy is before you start calling something that.
3. It's not even the correct quote.
4. The correct way to say it is like this: "Security ONLY by obscurity is ill-advised"
5. Obscurity is a perfectly valid layer in almost any security model.

Without the ability to inspect the conduct and performance of elected officials, there's no reliable way to know who to vote for in an election.

And that's just flat out not true at all. For example, you could vote for someone who has never served in a government office.