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Alan’s Exif Viewer

Last week I launched exif.alanreed.org an online Exif viewer. This tool allows you to view the metadata embedded within images such as brand, model, and serial number of the camera. Some cameras even store the latitude and longitude of where the image was taken. Cell phones especially store tons of good information in Exif.

I wanted to make this tool for a while and finally got the chance during a 20 hour drive to Orlando, Fl for the annual HTCIA conference.

Right now the tool only works for images, but in the future I hope to add the ability to extract metadata from other file types such as pdf, docx, and exe.

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[Solved] Change httpd Document Root results in 403 Forbidden on Apache 2.4 and Fedora 22

Recently, I decided to take the leap and begin using Linux exclusively. I installed Fedora 22 and so far I like it. I hit my first major snag when setting up a LAMP development environment.
After installing Apache and setting up a virtual host all pages returned error 403 Forbidden. I am running Apache 2.4. The first thing I noticed is that Apache changed the syntax for allowing and denying access to a directory. Previously you would use:

Allow from All

to grand access to a directory. In Apache 2.4 you use:

Require all granted

After ensuring I was allowing access to the new document root in httpd.conf correctly, I started to get stuck. Only after much digging, I came across the root of the problem: SELinux Contexts. SELinux adds an additional level of security by layering more flexible and powerful access controls on top of the standard Linux access control. SELinux is found on Fedora and Red Hat systems.

You can check to see if SELinux is enforcing access control on your system by running:

$ sestatus

You must add the httpd_system_context_t context to the new document root so that Apache has access. You can read more about SELinux here.

In production you do not want to weaken security to get things working. You should give files the correct context so Apache works with SELinux. However, in a development environment, you can simply disable SELinux to make your life easier.

To disable SELinux modify /etc/selinux/config to look like:

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
#     enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
#     permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
#     disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=disabled
# SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these three values:
#     targeted - Targeted processes are protected,
#     minimum - Modification of targeted policy. Only selected processes are protected.
#     mls - Multi Level Security protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

Save that file then restart. You can run sestatus again to make sure SELinux is disabled. If you configured httpd.conf correctly, Apache should now be able to access the new document root.