[Herts] CENTOS 5.1 LAMP

[nicolas at jetblackjelly.com]

Hi,

Time for a new dedicated server - in preparation I have been building a test server at home. Based on Centos 5.1 the aim is to install the minimum amount of services and a tight configuration to help keep the server secure.
    
I have based my configuration on the following sets of notes. 

http://www.howtoforge.com/centos-5.1-server-lamp-email-dns-ftp-ispconfig

http://www.phpvs.net/articles/blakes-centos-lamp-server-guide-single-page/#Preamble

http://www.rayheffer.com/linux%20web%20server.shtml

Although they do not always agree.. :(

Observations / Questions!

1. Various Howto's advise or curse SELinux - Any thoughts?

2. One of the howto's recommends removing a long list of packages to tidy up the install, fair enough. Until I try to remove indexhtml which insists on taking 35 other packages with it - including the kernel. It seems all these dependencies are by design. Very strange!

3. FTP - Spent way too long looking at the options for Proftpd which I currently use, but it is not in the Centos base distro and VSftpd, in the Centos distro but no official webmin module, configuration etc.. I have solved the problem now.. The server won't have an FTP server - SFTP only.

4. Firewall - My current server uses the KISS firewall script which has worked well. http://www.geocities.com/steve93138
So, this was my first choice. The scripts tests for - ipt_state, and ipt_multiport - but these tests fail!

Although

modprobe ipt_state 
modprobe ipt_multiport

Work fine. I have removed the tests from the script, but it would be nice to fix it properly

http://www.geocities.com/steve93138/kiss.txt

I am also puzzled as to why a number of the Modprobe commands are duplicated in the script and the effects of not loading the other modules mentioned in the script.  

Thanks again for any thoughts. 

Regards
Nicolas