Building Secure Servers with Linux

Source: LWN.net

Computer security can be both discouraging and
liberating, says Michael D. "Mick" Bauer, author of "Building Secure
Servers with Linux" (O'Reilly, US $44.95). "Once you get past the
horror of grasping its futility--a feeling identical to the one that
young French horn players get upon realizing no matter how hard they
practice, their instrument will continue to humiliate them periodically
without warning--you realize that there's nowhere to go but up," Bauer
explains. While acknowledging that system security is, on some level,
futile, Bauer goes on to offers a great deal of practical advice on how
to think about threats and risks, how to protect publicly accessible
hosts via good network design, how to harden a fresh installation of
Linux and keep it patched against newly discovered vulnerabilities, and
much more.

"Building Secure Servers with Linux" focuses on the most common use of
Linux--as a hub offering services to an organization or the larger
Internet--and shows readers how to harden their hosts against attacks.
As the cost of broadband and other high-speed internet connectivity has
gone down, and its availability has increased, more Linux users are
providing services such as HTTP, Anonymous FTP, etc., to the world at
large. At the same time, some important, powerful, and popular open
source tools have emerged and rapidly matured--some of which rival
expensive commercial equivalents--making Linux a particularly
appropriate platform for providing secure internet services. But
security is uppermost in the mind of anyone providing such a service.
Any server experiences casual probe attempts dozens of time a day, and
serious break-in attempts are made with some frequency as well.