[Lincs] Security, viruses etc.

[Peter Cooper]

On 22 Aug 2004, at 14:51, J Simpson V21 wrote:
>> FTP, SSH, and telnet, SMB
>
> I have no idea what the above are, but can anyone direct me on how to 
> turn
> these off in Redhat9?

SSH allows someone to access the command prompt on your machine 
(generally). Telnet is a less secure version of the same. As you can 
imagine, you don't want someone on the Internet being able to use your 
command prompt. FTP is File Transfer Protocol and allows you to serve 
files from your computer. If you have a good password (i.e. not 
someone's name or a dictionary word) then you shouldn't have any need 
to worry, as long as you keep your system reasonably up to date (Redhat 
9 is quite fine for now).

> I investigated Linux several years ago and was told to wait as it was 
> not
> user friendly.  When I looked again at it last November, I was told to 
> go
> for it.  I was hoping to be using a linux operating system by
> February/March.  I feel a bit sad that its August and I'm still not 
> there,
> but I am hanging in there as I do believe it is the way of the future.

I wouldn't worry too much, I only have one development box running 
desktop Linux myself (XP on another, and Mac OS X on my main machine - 
although OS X will run nearly all the same software as Linux anyway!) 
You should use what works for what you need to do (I use Windows XP 
solely as my Indesign/Illustrator/Photoshop machine, as Linux isn't 
much use for that), but moving away from Windows if you can is always a 
good move, well done so far! I also use Linux on all my servers, which 
is where I personally think Linux stands way above the rest (except 
BSD, perhaps).

> One is very ancient and the other is as slow as I have now.  At some 
> point I
> will have to discuss how to put them to best use.  I don't really 
> understand
> about servers or networks etc,  but I think I will have to look at 
> that to
> get the best from what I have.

If your children are reaching their teen years or starting to do 
homework, I imagine you might end up getting broadband or at least an 
unmetered dialup in the coming years. If so, networking your computers, 
and working out how to share the Internet connection between them, 
might be another long term project for you :-) (Linux makes it pretty 
easy, even if all the computers are running different operating 
systems)

Best of luck!
Pete