Linux security advice
- Thread starter Sheff
- Start date
Technically there are viruses available for linux (a partial list is on wikipedia ) however it is extremely unlikely that you will get infected by one. In linux as long as you are not running as root user then unless there is some security hole it can't be executed without your root password. I won't say it is impossible but I certainly wouldn't worry about it.
Last edited:
They are both cross platform...
Virus' do exist on Linux, but their damage is severly limited by the excellent permission system.
If you have a machine serving windows clients (like a samba file server or something) ClamAV is an excellent tool, but not very useful for a pure *nix setup.
rootkits are more common problem, something that checks your system files against hashed proven ones is a must. rkhunter is one i use (http://www.rootkit.nl/) and for the life of me can't remember the other.
iptables is the standard Linux firewall backend, you can write rules in yourself or use programs like firestarter (http://www.fs-security.com/) or guarddog (http://www.simonzone.com/software/guarddog/) to configure via a GUI.
If you are interested there are plenty of books/online material on the subject (you will need a lot if you're going to play with iptables).
Of course more important than all of the above is the user showing judgement and common sense, if you recieve a file from an unknown source, don't execute it (which a Linux system won't unless specifically told to anyway)
Off topic - did ubuntu detect your hard drives ok?
Thanks for the advice, I'm definitely interested learning more about Linux so will be doing a lot of reading.
No problems at all, the only trouble I had was with the drivers for my wireless card, it could detect the card but woudn't actually communicate with it, but I just searched for the right ones and it works perfectly now.
Now go play with Compiz !!
Done
Screenshots will be added to the other thread tonight hopefully.