Re: Secure host newbie

[Matt Taylor <mtaylor () clippercitynetworks com>]

There are many, many security issues for each of the services that you
are going to be using.  First of all, you need to consider whether or
not you are going to use the default kernel for 7.3, which some consider
to be rather buggy.  If the underlying OS is buggy, then all your
security work would be for naught anyway.  I would strongly suggest
using a new version of RH that comes with a more robust kernel.  

Without knowing more about each of the processes you are running it's
hard to recommend anything to you.  What Apache version are you running?
Are you going to use Sendmail?  Lots to be concerned about.  

Your email did not mention anything about a firewall?  If you are going
to hang this poor box out 'sans' firewall, then keeping it secure is
going to be a hard task.

I suggest getting a good book on RedHat security from Amazon.  Even if
you are on a tight budget, it's money well spent.

- Matthew Taylor



On Mon, 2004-03-29 at 10:04, xilopublic1 () ca inter net wrote:
> Hi there,
>   I'm going to put a host on the internet in a day or two, it will be closed to public
> during the development stage.  We 
> have a lot of services to setup and I was wondering about security issues for each of
> these services.  We will be 
> running this on a Redhat 7.3 base system.
>
> The services we will have are HTTP (Apache), private FTP, SSH access, POP server for our
> users, SMTP for users 
> that would have to use ours, SSL for secure money transactions, might have news server,
> might have a MP3 stream 
> server and will have home-made servers for home-made clients.
>
> Now, before I ask you guys a whole lot of newbie questions, I would like to read good
> documents on these topics.  
> Howtos, documentation, tutorials, books, all kinds of references are appreciated,
> especially if I can get them free! 
> (Since our budget is extremely limited).
>
> Thanks,
>  
> Simon
>
>
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