Re: Re: a secure base system

[martin f krafft <madduck () madduck net>]

also sprach Tobias Weisserth <tobias () weisserth de> [2004.03.15.2208 +0100]:
> Which means that he has to a little bit more work because he can't
> *rely* on the distributor to supply patches in time. It's a trade-off.

Sure, it's a trade-off. But with the administrative tools provided
by Debian, as well as the cleanliness of a Debian system, I'd choose
that over OpenBSD anytime. After all, FHS-compliance and system
integrity/cleanliness contribute a significant portion to security.

> He'll have to stay informed himself if the Debian Security Team
> doesn't warn in time about critical packages in unstable or
> testing. Maybe it mustn't be this way and there are regular
> updates for unstable. But the Debian site itself advises against
> the use of unstable regarding the security issues.

I use testing on over 100 production systems and have never had
a single problem. By the time that security updates make it to
security.debian.org for stable, an updated version makes it to
unstable. So I mix testing and unstable and only update when really
necessary. This has treated me very well.

> > And concerning workstations: your security better shield a security
> > problem on a workstation.
>
> Non comprende? ;-)

If, in a productive setting, you are concerned about remote exploits
to your workstation, then you've got a whole different problem. Of
course, exploits may still come from inside, but the risk should be
relatively low since productive workstations should not be able to
inflict any harm.

> Though a lot of work if we're talking about workstations here...

Our productive workstations get installed once and stay like that
for months. With the appropriate AIDE/Tripwire rulesets, that's not
different than a server.

-- 
martin;              (greetings from the heart of the sun.)
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