By Kurt Seifried Rev 0.1
This book is specifically on RedHat security. I will cover various topics / areas, why you would want to secure them, how to secure them, how to test it, etc. As one person's feedback said, this is a RedHat security cookbook, which is precisely what I am aiming for. More and more RedHat admins are not as experienced as the older crowd (go fig huh), and securing your machines is important, so that's why I am writing this. RedHat has a vast amount of wonderful security tools (rpm, PAM, etc) that it doesn't really mention anywhere, and this also will be covered.
I find a lot of system security boils down to simple things, use good passwords, keep your software up to date, etc, and RedHat makes this easily possible. However for most of us we need more then just a base amount of security, and that is who this book is aimed at, pretty much anyone that wants to secure their RedHat system. This book is different then say "Practical Unix and Internet Security" in that it is RedHat specific with step-by-step instructions. I will not cover to much theory here, get Practical if you want that.
I am pretty damn amazed at the response I have gotten, dozens of emails over the last week, all positive but for one person who I am currectly arguing with on the redhat linux security mailing list ;) (problem is we're both right, so it might take some time to settle). I have had over 3000 individuals visit the site, which I didn't expect at all. I am currently writing section 7 as you can see, it's a rather large one, but chock fulla good info. .
A note to all you people that wanna mirror me. ASK FIRST. I don't mind at all being mirrored. Simply tell me which host will be grabbing the files, otherwise my automajical log analyzing software will flag you as an illegal mirror and block access for you off from the www server (I am half german, this is pro-active security, and it's better then me driving a tank through your house ;).
Most of the tools I will mention are available in easy to install rpm format, I want this book to be a simple as possible. All but a few of the tools I will mention are GNU licensed, or otherwise 'free'.
A note on the license for this material, it is copyright Kurt Seifried 1998, and I don't mind it being redistributed (duh, bit late now that it's on the web ;), however leave the footer of the page on or else... else what I'm not sure, but you are warned. Also if you plan to use this commercially, contact me first and we can arrange something. I take money and hardware (guess what I spend most of my money on =).
Contact Kurt Seifried, All rights reserved Kurt Seifried 1998, content and information may not be reposted physically or electronically without the express permission of the author, this includes but is not limited to www mirror sites, email, usenet news, etc.