Security

Unix, and its derivatives such as Linux, are network (and Internet) centred/oriented; Linux machines will happily sit waiting for logins, serving web-docs and generally doing its best to talk to anyone and everyone on the Net if so asked...all of which means you should ensure your machine is tied up tight, especially if it's online 24/7.

Briefly:

• keep an eye on the security-related mailing lists and install the updates and patches that are recommended --- if you aren't on them, get on them;
  
  
• restrict remote access by both wrapping services with something like inetd or xinetd (and don't run services you don't need) and running a packet filter such as ipchains or iptables;
  
  
• run intrusion-detection software such as Tripwire;
  
  
• pay attention to your logs and preferably log to a remote machine.