How to-What is a keylogger?
Keylogger is a software that quietly monitors keyboard input so as to log any keypresses the user makes. Keyloggers can be used by malicious attackers to sniff out passwords and other sensitive textual information, but often times the user himself (or the corporate branch) wants to monitor his computer unattended (or the employees), reliably storing any unauthorized keyboard activity for later inspection. For example, when you leave your PC just to grab a quick bite from the vending machine, you might want to know if anybody was touching it while you were gone. Or you could use it to monitor your supposedly cheating wife, or young kids while they are surfing the web. You could also use it to obtain statistics of your most pressed keys in order to create your custom Dvorak-style keyboard (I've seen that done). Perhaps you want EVERYTHING you've typed or written in the past months archived for ANY purpose... Uses are limitless.
You can check the action manually in one terminal by typing in -
# logkeys --start
(You'll get some messages complaining about missing items, which you can ignore)
and in another terminal follow the keys by typing in -
# tail -f /var/log/logkeys.log
I've also created a script named "logkeys-start-stop" which you can put in the Startup directory or in /etc/rc.d/rc.local, if you wish to automatically start at boot.
The script could also be put on the desktop where the first time it's clicked it will start "logkeys" (if it's not running) and the second time it's clicked, it will stop "logkeys".
Below are "logkeys" options and a "logkeys-0.1.0.pet"
Cheers,
s
(If anyone looks at mine, they'll quickly realize just how boring an enterprise like this can be....)
Note: Tested on pup431 and probably will work on other versions, as well.