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I agree, in part, with your overview. A completely secure system is one
that is unplugged and that isn't exactly useful. I would dare say that
you don't want the same level of security as I do or as anyone else
might which is why it is important to give as much information as
possible and let people pick and choose what they feel is important to
their specific needs.
Case in point, admin A has a server in a cave that is physically highly
protected. Disk encryption and securing single user mode might not be
as important as securing the network connection. So that admin might
only care about the VPN, SSH, IPTables, and related chapters and not so
much on the LUKS Disk Encryption.
I feel that it is important to give admins and users as much information
as possible so they can make an educated decision on mitigating their
systems down to an acceptable level of risk. Users should know that
their systems are NOT secure as soon as they install Fedora or any other
operating system.
If we are missing something you think should be addressed please feel
free to develop a chapter.
Thanks,
Eric Christensen
E-Mail: sparks(a)fedoraproject.org
GPG Key: BD0C14C1
Magnus Glantz wrote:
This e-mail is about security and user friendliness, and how I think
this guide perhaps may be modified into something better.
This may also be me misunderstanding the purpose of this guide. Be aware.
I agree that Government Security Agencies and Banks has more to loose than a lot of other
people :-)
Last night I couldn't get to sleep, due to my big mouth, so I thought a bit more
about the security guide.
I guess this guide aims to the users of Fedora. This may be a huuge misconception on my
part, but, I though
regular home users are the main users of Fedora. So.. this guide should perhaps to be
focused on that kind of usage and
that kind of knowledge levels.
My experience, working with security in highly secure government/telco environments is
that security
and ease of use/user friendliness is two most important main counter parts.
On one hand, it's "pretty easy" to make something extremely secure, but
extremely secure systems is a total drag to be in
- because they are difficult to access, use and communicate to and from, due to all
restrictions and security related administration.
I believe the standard Fedora user never would want such a system. In a system like that
security has compromised to much user friendliness for it to be fun.
If security isn't your definition of happy-happy joy-joy :-)
I had a thought that perhaps this guide should mainly not focus on different things that
makes a system secure as a bank.
Instead perhaps it should focus on covering techniques that allows ones home computer to
operate in a secure
_and_ user friendly manner.
Here's what I wrote on my phone last night, trying to kill demons of guilt and shame
spawned out of my nonconstructive mail yesterday.
I tried to sort them in order of positive impact on security weighed against user
friendliness.
1) Keep your system up-to-date.
1.1) Perhaps advocacy that users should prefer "Yum installed software", as it
automatically will get updated via Yum.
2) Keep backups of your data.
2.1) Some easy ways of backing up data. Burn on CD/DVD, put on external storage, backup
hard drive, etc. S/W recommendations.
3) Running a firewall.
3.1) Using the shipped Fedora firewall setup tools, enabling the firewall at install.
4) Use SE-Linux
5) Use common sense
5.1 Do not accept unknown stuff/software from unknown people. If a stranger walked up to
you in real life and offered you an unidentifiable object.. and you at the same time
constantly heard and read stories of people accepting unidentifiable objects from
strangers - finding out the object was a bomb / robotic miniature robber - YOU WOULD RUN
AWAY!
5) Do not run server software that you do not use (as web, mail, ftp, nfs or even a ssh
server (if it's a desktop))
6) Advanced topics - Here one may cover more "user unfriendly" stuff for the
paranoid government spy user types :-)
6.1 Encryption of different kinds (files, file systems, e-mail, etc)
6.2 Advanced hardening techniques and tools.
6.3 Advanced auditing techniques and tools
6.4 Security policy and/or paranoid thinking
Some more links.
Organizations:
http://www.cert.org/archive/pdf/aia-handbook.pdf
http://www.first.org/resources/guides/
http://www.sans.org/reading_room/
//M
mån 2009-01-05 klockan 12:00 -0500
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:23:45 -0500
> From: Eric Christensen <eric(a)christensenplace.us>
> Subject: Re: PATCH[1/1] Linux Security Guide
> To: For participants of the Documentation Project
> <fedora-docs-list(a)redhat.com>
> Message-ID: <49617D41.5040205(a)christensenplace.us>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
Good resources. Thanks for sending them. My reasoning for building
that part of the Security Guide based on US Government documents and not
documents from Universities or commercial sources has a simple
explanation. Government computers HAVE to be secure. I've seen way too
many universities and businesses run a half-way security mindset. They
are too interested in the bottom line than a secure system even though a
secure system will help the bottom line in the long run.
The only other industry that I would like to pull from is the banking
industry. They are generally notorious for their secure systems (I'm
talking about the larger banks). They could stand to loose billions of
dollars if they are "broken into". Of course most of the banks make
their documentation secret as to not tip off anyone with a possible
documented flaw.
I agree that we should be looking at multiple sources and that will come
in time. Please feel free to add information into the guide. I'll be
happy to read any patches that you, or anyone else, has to offer to the
guide. If you have any specific interests, please let me know!
Thanks,
Eric Christensen
E-Mail: sparks(a)fedoraproject.org
GPG Key: BD0C14C1
Magnus Glantz wrote:
>>> I'm sorry if I came off a bit rude, it wasn't my intent.
>>> Also, I'm sorry for not being constructive, I'll try not and e-mail
during rush our in the future :-)
>
>
>>> About a more wide spread flora of security
references. My thought was that the more known universities around the world
>>> must have written kilometers of papers on Linux Security. Finding freely
available papers describing general security on
>>> Linux was easier said than done. I found some references during a quick scan
this evening.
>
>
>>> I guess it's a matter of trust. Of course
the US Government and the NSA has excellent and trustworthy security people,
>>> and that information in this subject is collaborative.. but at least I feel
more secure seeing that it's not only
>>> the US Government and secret service that approves and advocates the security
issues brought out in this security guide.
>
>
>>> Universities:
>>>
http://www.princeton.edu/~essweb/linux/linuxsecurity.html
>>>
http://www.yale.edu/its/secure-computing/
>>>
http://www.yale.edu/its/security/sysadmin/server-guidelines.html
>>>
http://www.yale.edu/its/security/network/unix.html
>>>
http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/security/unix-box.html
>
>
>>> Other:
>>>
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Security-HOWTO/
>>>
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Security-Quickstart-HOWTO/
>>>
http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Secure-Programs-HOWTO/open-source-security.html
>>>
http://www.puschitz.com/SecuringLinux.shtml
>>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Security_Modules
>
>
>>> Vendors:
>>>
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/en-US/Securit...
>
>
>>> I'll try and find some more / better
references as soon as I have some more free time.
>
>
>>> //M
>
>
>
>
>>> sn 2009-01-04 klockan 12:00 -0500 skrev Message: 8
>>> Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 09:44:55 -0500
>>> From: "Paul W. Frields" <stickster(a)gmail.com>
>>> Subject: Re: PATCH[1/1] Linux Security Guide
>>> To: fedora-docs-list(a)redhat.com
>>> Message-ID: <20090104144455.GB18821(a)localhost.localdomain>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
>
>>> On Sun, Jan 04, 2009 at 09:07:16PM +1000,
Murray McAllister wrote:
>>>> On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 7:20 PM, Magnus Glantz <mg(a)hacka.net>
wrote:
>>>>> My 5 as an non US citizen.
>>>
>
>>>>> I do not
feel comfortable with a guide that seems almost completely
>>>>> ripped off published US military/government documents.
>>>> I only looked at the English. I was not aware of the origins of the
>>> content.
>>>> I will be more careful in future.
>>
>
>>>> Thanks! :-)
>>> "Ripped off" seems unnecessarily harsh to me, and incorrectly
implies
>>> that somehow the content was lifted without permission, when in fact
>>> the references in question are freely available to everyone (USA
>>> domestic or foreign). The principles embodied in most of those
>>> references are fairly universal and you'll find them echoed in most
>>> high-level infosec materials. In fact, some foreign governments use
>>> these references themselves.
>
>
>>> The Security Guide continues to be a
collaborative, participatory
>>> project, so anyone who is unhappy with the content -- or completely
>>> satisfied, too, for that matter -- is free to get involved! :-) You
>>> could start by providing equivalent or comparable non-US references,
>>> for example.
>
>
>
>
>
- ------------------------------
>
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:12:20 +0530
From: Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)fedoraproject.org>
Subject: curl instead of wget
To: For participants of the Documentation Project
<fedora-docs-list(a)redhat.com>
Message-ID: <49618FAC.30400(a)fedoraproject.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
Hi,
>
In documentation, wherever we are using wget, it is
probably better to
use curl instead since wget is not installed by default on the Live CD
while curl is. Just a thought.
>
Rahul
>
>
>
-
------------------------------
>
Message: 4
Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:01:54 +0200
From: Basil Mohamed Gohar <abu_hurayrah(a)hidayahonline.org>
Subject: Re: curl instead of wget
To: For participants of the Documentation Project
<fedora-docs-list(a)redhat.com>
Message-ID: <1231131714.3714.7.camel(a)localhost.localdomain>
Content-Type: text/plain
>
On Mon, 2009-01-05 at 10:12 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>>> Hi,
>
>
>>> In documentation, wherever we are using wget,
it is probably better to
>>> use curl instead since wget is not installed by default on the Live CD
>>> while curl is. Just a thought.
>
>
>>> Rahul
>
>
I ran into this problem (missing wget) after installing
from the F10
LiveCD, so I can relate. However, I've no experience with curl, and I
must say, curl --help is somewhat intimidating. Is it as
straightforward to use as wget, especially for someone that may be new
(e.g., the majority of those using documentation on a new installation
of Fedora)?
>
________________________________________________________________________
>
Basil Mohamed Gohar
abu_hurayrah(a)hidayahonline.org
www.basilgohar.com
>
>
>
-
------------------------------
>
Message: 5
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 23:04:11 -0600
From: Ian Weller <ianweller(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: curl instead of wget
To: For participants of the Documentation Project
<fedora-docs-list(a)redhat.com>
Message-ID: <20090105050411.GA3404(a)gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
On Mon, Jan 05, 2009 at 07:01:54AM +0200, Basil Mohamed
Gohar wrote:
>>> On Mon, 2009-01-05 at 10:12 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>
>
>>>> In
documentation, wherever we are using wget, it is probably better to
>>>> use curl instead since wget is not installed by default on the Live CD
>>>> while curl is. Just a thought.
>>
>
>>>> Rahul
>>
>
>>> I ran into this
problem (missing wget) after installing from the F10
>>> LiveCD, so I can relate. However, I've no experience with curl, and I
>>> must say, curl --help is somewhat intimidating. Is it as
>>> straightforward to use as wget, especially for someone that may be new
>>> (e.g., the majority of those using documentation on a new installation
>>> of Fedora)?
>
>
Then shouldn't wget be installed by default?
>
- --
Ian Weller <ianweller(a)gmail.com>
http://ianweller.org
GnuPG fingerprint: E51E 0517 7A92 70A2 4226 B050 87ED 7C97 EFA8 4A36
"Technology is a word that describes something that doesn't work yet."
~ Douglas Adams
-