Fedora Extras is part of the larger Fedora Project and is a volunteer-based community effort to create a repository of packages that compliment Fedora Core. The Fedora Extras repository is enabled by default from Fedora Core 5 test2 onwards.

You can lean more about Fedora Extras from:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras

If you would like to install any software available from Fedora extras you can use yum.

yum install <packagename>

Where <packagename> is the name of the package you want to install. For example, if you wanted to install the abiword package, the command yum install abiword automatically installs the package and all dependencies.

The audit daemon, auditd, is now enabled by default. When auditd is running, the kernel directs audit messages to /var/log/audit/audit.log. The location of this file is specified in /etc/auditd.conf.

AVC messages for SELinux are sent using the audit infrastructure. These messages are now in /var/log/audit/audit.log.

When auditd is not running, the kernel passes audit messages to syslog. These logs are typically kept in /var/log/messages and are viewable using dmesg.

Audit extensions are now compiled into PAM. All programs that do grant entry to the system or change user account attributes will generate an audit message.

To enable auditing within the kernel, you must pass the parameter audit=1 to the kernel during boot. Otherwise, you can use this command to enable auditing during run time:

auditctl -e 1

The database needed by the locate utility is no longer created by default. Enable the database creation by setting DAILY_UPDATE to yes in /etc/updatedb.conf if you want to use locate.

The version of OpenSSH in Fedora Core 5 test2 is based on OpenSSH 3.9 and includes strict permission and ownership checks for the user configuration file ~/.ssh/config. If this file does not have appropriate ownership and permissions, ssh will exit.

Check that ~/.ssh/config is owned by the owner of ~/, and that its permissions are set to mode 600.

ls -l ~/.ssh/config
-rw-------  1 username username 400 May  5 18:44 /home/username/.ssh/config

The directory ~/ is command-line shorthand for the logged in user's home directory, usually /home/username/.

In addition, OpenSSH is no longer configured to request X11 forwarding by default when connecting to servers. To enable X11 forwarding, the -X or -Y option must be specified, or the ForwardX11 option must be enabled in the ~/.ssh/config file.

The behavior of ssh clients that are invoked with the -X option has changed. In OpenSSH 3.8 and later, X11 forwarding is performed in a way that applications run as untrusted clients by default. Previously, X11 forwarding was performed so that applications always ran as trusted clients. Some applications may not function properly when run as untrusted clients. To forward X11 so that applications are run as trusted clients, invoke ssh with the -Y option instead of the -X option, or set ForwardX11Trusted in the ~/.ssh/config file.

This section highlights changes and additions to the various GUI server and system configuration tools in Fedora Core.

Fedora Core 5 test2 users are advised not to use the Java RPM provided by Sun. It contains Provides that conflict with names used in packages provided as part of Fedora Core 5 test2. Because of this, Sun Java might disappear from an installed system during package upgrade operations.

Fedora Core 5 test2 users should use either the RPM from jpackage.org or manually install the Sun Java tarball into /opt.

This section highlights various security items from Fedora Core.

#%PAM-1.0
auth required pam_securetty.so
auth required pam_stack.so service=system-auth
auth required pam_nologin.so
account required pam_stack.so service=system-auth
password required pam_stack.so service=system-auth
# pam_selinux.so close should be the first session rule
session required pam_selinux.so close
session required pam_stack.so service=system-auth
session required pam_loginuid.so
session optional pam_console.so
# pam_selinux.so open should be the last session rule
session required pam_selinux.so open
#%PAM-1.0
auth required pam_securetty.so
auth include system-auth
# no module should remain after 'include' if 'sufficient' might
# be used in the included configuration file
# pam_nologin moved to account phase - it's more appropriate there
# other modules might be moved before the system-auth 'include'
account required pam_nologin.so
account include system-auth
password include system-auth
# pam_selinux.so close should be the first session rule
session required pam_selinux.so close
session include system-auth
# the system-auth config doesn't contain sufficient modules
# in the session phase
session required pam_loginuid.so
session optional pam_console.so
# pam_selinux.so open should be the last session rule
session required pam_selinux.so open

A Java-like free and open source environment is available within the Fedora Core 5 test2 release.

It has three components: GNU Java runtime (libgcj), the Eclipse Java compiler (ecj), and a set of wrappers and links (java-gcj-compat) that present the runtime and compiler to the user in the same way as other Java environments are presented.

Several major software packages such as Openoffice.org Base, Eclipse, and Apache Tomcat, as well as several other Java software packages included in this release, are compatible with this environment.

For more information, refer to the FAQ:

http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/JavaFAQ

Fedora Core 5 test2 has been built using GCC 4.1, which is included with the distribution.

This section includes information related to the support of various languages under Fedora Core.

	IIIMF replaced
	SCIM has replaced IIIMF as the language input framework in Fedora Core.

Several programs are excluded from Fedora Core and Fedora Extras due to licensing issues. These include programs that provide MP3 and DVD support, Flash Player and Real Player. For more on this subject, please refer to:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems

Tools are included in Fedora Core and Fedora Extras for easily mastering and burning CDs and DVDs. Tools that can be used from the console include cdrecord, readcd, mkisofs, and other typical Linux applications. For GNOME users, the xcdroast package from Fedora Core and the graveman package from Fedora Extras allow easy preparation of audio and data discs. For KDE users, the k3b package provides a very robust tool for these tasks.

Version 2.2 of the Apache HTTP Server is now included in Fedora Core. This release brings a number of improvements since the 2.0 series, including:

The following changes have been made to the default httpd configuration:

Any third-party modules compiled for httpd 2.0 must be rebuilt for httpd 2.2.

Any existing configuration files might need adapting for 2.2; refer to http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/upgrading.html for more information.

Version 5.1 of PHP is now included in Fedora Core. This release brings a number of improvements since PHP 5.0, including:

The following extension modules have been added:

The following extension modules are no longer built:

Browsing of Windows shares (also known as SMB browsing) is now possible. In releases prior to Fedora Core 5 test2, the firewall prevented the proper function of SMB browsing. With the addition of the ip_conntrack_netbios_ns kernel module to the 2.6.14 kernel and corresponding enhancements to system-config-securitylevel, the firewall now properly tracks SMB browse broadcasts.

This section contains information related to the X Window System implementation provided with Fedora.