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My First 10 Minutes on a Server

codelitt.com

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Re: My First 10 Minutes on a Server

#11

Post by codelitt »

brokenwren wrote: post #7

This one is pretty decent but if you want the ultimate guide check out this one: https://www.inversoft.com/guides/2016-guide-to-user-data-sec... It covers 10x what all the other guides cover in terms of server and application security. It was posted a few weeks ago on HN but didn't make the front-page.

Yes. We originally just put this together just as a primer for younger engineers to understand the basic steps. The guide you posted looks really good though. It looks like it covers some of the application side of things as well.

Re: My First 10 Minutes on a Server

#13

Post by jtchang »

Why don't they disable root logins with password period and only allow SSH key authentication?

Also if you put a passphase on your SSH key does that mean you have to enter it every time you want to SSH to the server (in order to unlock the key) or does it stay cached on most SSH clients (ssh on mac terminal, putty on windows, etc).

Isn't watching failed logins kind of useless? I think it is more important to see what successful logins were made.

Re: My First 10 Minutes on a Server

#16

Post by robotdan »

atonse wrote: post #9
brokenwren wrote: post #7

This one is pretty decent but if you want the ultimate guide check out this one: https://www.inversoft.com/guides/2016-guide-to-user-data-sec... It covers 10x what all the other guides cover in terms of server and application security. It was posted a few weeks ago on HN but didn't make the front-page.

My worry here is that, in posting what seems to be a book, people just won't even do it because we don't have time to do it, unless this is a primary part of their jobs. If a 10 minute guide gets users 90% of the way, then they're more likely to do it. And that's good enough to cover a majority of automated attacks. Update: I take it back – they've provided scripts to run this stuff. I will explore these. Thanks for…

Agreed - it is a bit long. But if you want to set something up from top to bottom it may be worth it. Cool - I saw the link to Github as well, looks like there is code to do much of what the article outlines. Awesome.

Re: My First 10 Minutes on a Server

#17

Post by tobltobs »

Can somebody help me out with this question: The default config for unattended-upgrades seems to not enable reboot even if a reboot would be required to activate the upgrades. Wouldn't that had made quite a few important upgrades in the last years effectless if they server did never get rebooted?

Re: My First 10 Minutes on a Server

#18

Post by Lockyy »

jtchang wrote: post #13

Why don't they disable root logins with password period and only allow SSH key authentication? Also if you put a passphase on your SSH key does that mean you have to enter it every time you want to SSH to the server (in order to unlock the key) or does it stay cached on most SSH clients (ssh on mac terminal, putty on windows, etc). Isn't watching failed logins kind of useless? I think it is more important to see what…

If you put a passphrase on your ssh key you only have to enter it when you initially add it to your ssh-agent.

Re: My First 10 Minutes on a Server

#19

Post by jldugger »

> We don't even have a password for our root user. We'll want to select something random and complex.

So you're taking something secure by default -- no password means no login allowed, and making it less secure. And if you have hundreds of these servers, you'll need to rotate them whenever someone on the team leaves. This is painful.

Simple solution: leave root password blank, don't forget your sudo password. If you can't get in, use grub or a liveCD. Or tie auth to ldap or kerberos so you _can't_ forget. This is one area where Windows has a distinct advantage: AD more or less requires admins to think at the level of network of servers, and provides a baseline set of services always present.

Re: My First 10 Minutes on a Server

#20

Post by shujito »

jldugger wrote: post #19

> We don't even have a password for our root user. We'll want to select something random and complex. So you're taking something secure by default -- no password means no login allowed, and making it less secure. And if you have hundreds of these servers, you'll need to rotate them whenever someone on the team leaves. This is painful. Simple solution: leave root password blank, don't forget your sudo password. If you…

What if it is a VPS?
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