Security Basics mailing list archives
RE: Secure host newbie
From: "Shawn Jackson" <sjackson () horizonusa com>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 16:54:24 -0800
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.
Hmm, I'd recommend Red Hat 9.0. If you *have* to use RH 7.3 just remember to grab the most recent kernel, well even with RH 9.0 you would still have to do that. I don't recommend Fedora, if you wanted to stay in Red Hat's free family.
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.
First, if you going to use Red Hat, (or Debian) grab APT-Get, from http://apt.freshrpms.net/ and run apt-get dist-upgrade. Seaming you can't get a RHN account anymore. There are other tools out there for that, but APT is the only one I use on a day-to-day basis. If you're new to Linux head on over to http://easyfwgen.morizot.net/, or any other iptables generator and generate a iptables script. I'm sure the more Linux guys among us can recommend a better one, but I use that one for quick little deployments, works fine. Grab the newest RPM's for Httpd, OpenSSL, OpenSSH, etc. Pick a good FTP server, vsFTPd works fine IMHO but some people don't care for it. I'd recommend Postfix for SMTP/POP3 services, again a better mail server then sendmail IMHO.
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).
http://www.tldp.org Great source for Linux HowTo's and General system information. http://www.linux.com/ Has some good Documents and Articles. http://www.redhat.com/docs/ *The* resource for Red Hat information and guides. For specific products, (Apache, Postfix, etc) the homepages for those projects will be loaded with information and guides. If you don't have very good hardware, I've found that OpenBSD (maybe FreeBSD) runs much better then *NIX. OpenBSD has a much smaller footprint then Linux, which is good for lower-end systems. Shawn Jackson Systems Administrator Horizon USA 1190 Trademark Dr #107 Reno NV 89521 www.horizonusa.com Email: sjackson () horizonusa com Phone: (775) 858-2338 (800) 325-1199 x338 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethical Hacking at the InfoSec Institute. Mention this ad and get $545 off any course! All of our class sizes are guaranteed to be 10 students or less to facilitate one-on-one interaction with one of our expert instructors. Attend a course taught by an expert instructor with years of in-the-field pen testing experience in our state of the art hacking lab. Master the skills of an Ethical Hacker to better assess the security of your organization. Visit us at: http://www.infosecinstitute.com/courses/ethical_hacking_training.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current thread:
- Re: Secure host newbie, (continued)
- Re: Secure host newbie Simon Lemieux (Mar 30)
- Re: Secure host newbie Tiago Quadra (Mar 30)
- Re: Secure host newbie Xilo Musimene (Mar 30)
- Re: Secure host newbie Niek (Mar 31)
- Re: Secure host newbie Xilo Musimene (Mar 31)
- Re: Secure host newbie Xilo Musimene (Mar 30)
- Re: Secure host newbie Vincent (Mar 31)
- Re: Secure host newbie Mitchell Rowton (Mar 30)
- Re: Secure host newbie Justin_Andrusk (Mar 30)
- Re: Secure host newbie Simon Lemieux (Mar 30)
- Re: Secure host newbie Simon Lemieux (Mar 30)
- RE: Secure host newbie Shawn Jackson (Mar 31)
- Re: Secure host newbie Simon Lemieux (Mar 31)
- RE: Secure host newbie Shawn Jackson (Mar 31)
- RE: Secure host newbie Shawn Jackson (Mar 31)