Configuring Your Server for Security

Abstract

No matter what you want to use your server for, it’ll be useless if it isn’t secure. In this chapter, you’ll learn about the different security-related items that you’ll encounter when setting up your server. First, I’ll talk about the configuration of users and groups, because most of the security you’ll be using on your server will be bound to users and groups. Next, I’ll cover the Linux permissions that you can use to restrict access to your server’s file system. Following that, I’ll discuss some security mechanisms that aren’t so obvious, like the sudo mechanism and the system of pluggable authentication modules (PAMs). Finally, at the end of this chapter, I’ll give you a short introduction to configuring the iptables firewall.