Nine rules for Linux system security

The following rules and tricks may come in handy when you use the Linux operating system to handle security issues.

1. When logging in as root, avoid doing some regular work. This will reduce your risk of getting a virus and prevent you from making some mistakes.

2. If possible, use an encrypted connection when working on a remote machine. Using SSH instead of telnet, ftp, rsh, rlogin should be the standard operating specification. Because the security of SSH is well known.

3. Try to keep up-to-date with the most important packages related to the network. It is best to subscribe to some corresponding mailing lists to get the latest version of the announcements for bind, postfix, ssh, etc. The same principles apply to software related to local security.

4. Disable any network services you don't absolutely need for the server to work properly. This will make your system more secure. You can use the netstat program to find open ports with a socket status of LISTEN.

5. RPM packages from SUSE are digitally signed. You can verify the integrity of any SUSE RPM package by typing the following on the console: rpm — chechsig package.rpm. The required public gpg-key is copied to the root home directory during installation.

6. Always check the backup of user and system files. Remember: If you don't test if the backup works, it's useless and worthless.

7. Check your log file. Whenever possible, write a small script to search for suspicious items.

8. Use a firewall to enhance security, especially with tcp wrapper to improve system security.

9. Set security measures to ensure redundancy. It’s always better to see more security messages than to have no news.