Secure Linux install?

[Gerald Combs]

On Tue, 30 Oct 2001, Bradley Miller wrote:

> Ok -- this crap is getting old.  Again our mail server at the lake has been
> nailed by a freakin' hacker.  I wish to hell someone would put some teeth
> into some laws to thwarte and track this kind of thing.   What would be the
> best system to install to keep out of these messes?    

Smart-aleck-advocacy answer: OpenBSD.  

Advocacy-bordering-on-support answer: Red Hat 7.2.  

Red Hat really surprised me.  They went from having an absolutely insecure
default install in the 6.x series to something much more reasonable in
7.x.  As part of the install process you can turn on firewalling and block
or allow specific ports.  The automatic updater also makes it easy to
apply security patches.

Of course, installation is only the beginning.  :)  Searching for
"securing linux" on Google turns up a pile of links on locking down your
server.

> 
> -- Bradley Miller
> 
> 
>