Yeah, I've always preferred slackware for it's simplicity over all the bloatware and what-strange-app-am-I-supposed-to-edit-this-file-with-ware. I do hear that libc install has some race conditions and/or buffer overflows. Personally, I'd much rather run an OpenBSD box than a * Linux box if it needed to be secure. Obviously there is significant work involved with any machine on the internet but my experience is that putting and keeping a Open (or probably just *BSD) box is a lot less time and effort. With Linux I'm getting weekly e-mails about the latest buffer overflow/exploit of x commonly used program that's guaranteed to be on the machine. In general... keeping a Linux internet host just seems like too much work. That and when I've looked at texts on hardening Linux it involves reading a few ream size texts instead of the few pamphlet size text I had to to get my OBSD box up. I do have to beg off and say I haven't gone to any particular length to protect the box from local attackers but at least I know exactly what all the servers are doing. I guess my whole point is putting and maintaining a Linux inet box seems like a whole heck of lot more work that it should have to be. I'd suggest picking something less maintenance intensive. Josh __SIG__ On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Spencer J Sinn wrote: > Mike Hicks wrote: > > > > Heather Wagamon <hwagamon at andersonww.com> wrote: > > > > > > I've been thinking that I want to set up a personal Linux web/email > > > server at home so I can learn linux easier and become more comfortable > > > with it. I was wondering... what's the best linux/unix to use? I was > > > thinking "Red Hat" since that's what we use here. > > > > Well, I'll just suggest that you make sure you're running a new > > distribution. The Honeynet Project discovered that, on average, it takes > > about 72 hours for a default-install RedHat 6.2 box to get broken into. > > Of course, I understand that stock Win98 with file sharing enabled is > > pretty much just as bad.. > > > > If this doesn't show the great importance security (and not leaving > > everything turned on after an initial install), I don't know what does.. > > > > http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0106.html > > > > -- > > _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ ___ _ _ __ #define END.ARMS.CONTROL > > / \/ \(_)| ' // ._\ / - \(_)/ ./| ' /(__ /* Silo overflow */ > > \_||_/|_||_|_\\___/ \_-_/|_|\__\|_|_\ __) > > [ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088 at tc.umn.edu ] > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Part 1.2Type: application/pgp-signature > > > I know with my old box, SuSE, I had mapped Apache to the outside IP and > never had > a problem. But I mapped FTP and Telnet outside for an IP Masquerading > project a > friend of mine was working on for the U and had the Ramen worm trying to > get in > after about two hours!! Since then I have gone back to Slackware, mostly > to get > more under-the-hood experience ( YAST was good and bad because it DIFY). > If you are > just doing it as a learning project, I wouldn't even worry about routing > it to the > outside world. Create a bunch of phony accounts on your home network and > tear into > it. > _______________________________________________ > tclug-list mailing list > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >