DEV Community: David Mutebi

Getting started with Go-Lang

David Mutebi — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 09:43:46 +0000

Been looking into go-lang this past month and decided to give it a go.
this is tutorial i will take you through the different steps i took to setup the go-lang development environment on my pc.

the first step I recommend is to use GVM, GVM is the Go Version Manager.
To install GVM type in the following command in your terminal.

bash < <(curl -s -S -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/moovweb/gvm/master/binscripts/gvm-installer)

if you are using zsh instead of bash you can use the following command.

zsh < <(curl -s -S -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/moovweb/gvm/master/binscripts/gvm-installer)

once installed you can later check the available commands it comes with by entering the following command in your terminal.

$ gvm

below are some of the few it will display on your screen.

$ gvm
Usage: gvm [command]

Description:
  GVM is the Go Version Manager

Commands:
  version    - print the gvm version number
  get        - gets the latest code (for debugging)
  use        - select a go version to use (--default to set permanently)
  diff       - view changes to Go root
  help       - display this usage text
  implode    - completely remove gvm
  install    - install go versions
  uninstall  - uninstall go versions
  cross      - install go cross compilers
  linkthis   - link this directory into GOPATH
  list       - list installed go versions
  listall    - list available versions
  alias      - manage go version aliases
  pkgset     - manage go packages sets
  pkgenv     - edit the environment for a package set

Once gvm is installed, you can proceed to restart your terminal so it can get activated, since i was using bash i used the following command to restart my terminal.

$ exec bash -l

on restart, you can check the gvm version using the following command.

$ gvm version
Go Version Manager v1.0.22 installed
`

you can also set the environment variables using the following commands.

$ [[ -s "$HOME/.gvm/scripts/gvm" ]] && source "$HOME/.gvm/scripts/gvm"
$ export GOPATH=$HOME/go
$ export GOBIN=$GOPATH/bin
$ export PATH=${PATH}:$GOBIN:$GOROOT/bin

this will set set your $GOROOT and $GOPATH environment variables.

you can restart your terminal again to proceed with the following steps smoothly.

You can proceed to install go using the following gvm command.
gvm install go1.17.5

At the time of this article was written that was the latest version go released. To check for other go version releases follow this link.

Once go is installed. you can use this command to check for the version installed and also verify the installation.

$ go version

Go as a programming language has a wide range of applicability, it was originally built for programs related to networking and infrastructure. It was intended to replace popular high-performance server-side languages like Java and C++. Today, Go is used for a variety of applications like cloud and server side applications, DevOps, command line tools and much more.

in future articles i will demonstrate how to create applications in go.

thanks for reading 😊

Application of data structures in Cyber security.

David Mutebi — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 20:52:58 +0000

Data structures are defined as the pragmatic way of storing data so that data can be used efficiently.

So why the need for knowledge about data structures for a cybersecurity analyst or expert
As data grows, search operations will be slower to perform. Although high processing speeds have come up, they still fall limited to this data growth.
Data should be organised so not all items may be required to be searched but only the required data can be searched almost instantly
Common basic types of data structures and their history
Arrays, implementation dates back to the earliest high-level programming languages like FORTRAN(1957), COBOL(1960), ALGO60 that had support for multi-dimensional arrays.
Stacks were first proposed in 1946 in the computer design of the famous Alan M. Turing.
Linked lists, were developed at RAND corporation during the period of 1955 -1956 by engineers Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw, Herbert A Simon as the primary data structure for their information processing language.
B-Tree, invented by Rudolf Buyer
AVL, published in 1962 by two soviet inventors Georgy Adelson Velsky and E. M Landis as indicated in the paper An algorithm for organisation information.

Case study:
Use of data structures in pen testing
Pen testing is the authorised simulated attack performed on a computer system to evaluate its security.
During Pen testing, deep search and analysis operations are carried out in order to search for any kind of poor vulnerabilities.

The truth about SSL certificates.

David Mutebi — Thu, 07 Jan 2021 08:39:10 +0000

What is an SSL certificate?
SSL certificates are what enable websites to move from HTTP to HTTPS which is more secure.
SSL — more commonly called TLS is a protocol for encrypting internet traffic and verifying server identity.

Why does your website need an SSL certificate?
During login, SSL secures the username and password.
You also need SSL to stop your customer’s data from being appropriated by hackers if you running an e-commerce website.

How to add an SSL certificate to your site through the .htaccess file
add the following:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R,L]

To redirect only to a specific domain
For redirecting a specific domain to use HTTPS, add the following:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R,L]