Securing your Linux web server • Hacker News Board

Re: Securing your Linux web server

#51

Post by davvolun » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #44

madez wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not about learning everything by doing it yourself from scratch. Hosting a service yourself on your own server is becoming simpler and simpler by the day. Capable hardware is cheaply available in the form of single board computers and projects like Freedombox[0] and Yunohost[1] make the hosting part simple for the services they preconfigure. I don't know why you write such a confrontative comment. Hosting your…

First of all, it wasn't a confrontational comment, it was irony. And no, self-hosting does not help you control your data. Control would imply some kind of access control or lock, which all hosted services provide. Privacy would imply encryption, which you should be applying to your self-hosted service's files anyway, and can also apply to a hosted service.

It came off as confrontational to me..., and I don't see the irony (may be poor choice of word on that though, reductio ad absurdum perhaps?)

I would think someone working in marketing at American Apparel or some fashion magazine or something could get something useful in weaving their own cloth or sewing their own clothes. Similarly towards someone reading Hacker News and running their own server.

Re: Securing your Linux web server

#52

Post by newbear » Fri, Feb 23, 2018, 4:28 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #30

newbear wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general advice I've seen is to not host your own server. But I think it would be a great learning experience. If you cover the basics, is your server still extremely vulnerable?

No, but yes. You can make a very secure system by hosting it yourself. Do you need a very secure system? Or do you just need to know that you need a firewall, and to manage your credentials securely, and to segregate applications' security domains, and do filtering of inputs, and blocking of brute force attacks? You probably just need to learn about security, and learning to host yourself is not the same thing.

Ya you are right. My question is, is knowing basic security enough to feel secure in hosting yourself

Re: Securing your Linux web server

#53

Post by newbear » Fri, Feb 23, 2018, 8:57 PM UTC

madez wrote: post #42

dvtv75 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I have an Odroid X running Ubuntu (I couldn't find a Debian that was set up to run on it). It's my mail server, apache server, has an outward facing SSH server, and acts as a sensor data logger. It's pushed pretty much as far as it will go, for a little system like that, with a fairly high load average at times. Recently had a power cut that killed the system, but rather than reinstall I poked around for a few h…

I have an A20-Olinuxino-Micro with a battery, so the device can cleanly shutdown when power is lost. I strongly recommend only buying devices that are compatible with Debian main, or mainline Linux at least. Usually I just check if it's compatible with Debian main, and if it's not, I move on. The latest shiney SoC is not worth the software pain caused by uncooperative manufacturers.

Cool, and as to whether basic security will keep my server safe?

Re: Securing your Linux web server

#54

Post by rodolphoarruda » Tue, Feb 27, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

AFNobody wrote: post #50

madez wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can simply start an openssh-server on localhost with some unused port for testing. There is no need for the internet, other computers or let alone other computers from somebody else over the internet for that.

The person in question is a project manager and may be using something other than linux or mac.

I use Ubuntu Gnome. The company I work for does not use any OS other than Linux.