Book Image

Practical Linux Security Cookbook

By : Michael A Lindner, Tajinder Kalsi
Book Image

Practical Linux Security Cookbook

By: Michael A Lindner, Tajinder Kalsi

Overview of this book

With the growing popularity of Linux, more and more administrators have started moving to the system to create networks or servers for any task. This also makes Linux the first choice for any attacker now. Due to the lack of information about security-related attacks, administrators now face issues in dealing with these attackers as quickly as possible. Learning about the different types of Linux security will help create a more secure Linux system. Whether you are new to Linux administration or experienced, this book will provide you with the skills to make systems more secure. With lots of step-by-step recipes, the book starts by introducing you to various threats to Linux systems. You then get to walk through customizing the Linux kernel and securing local files. Next you will move on to manage user authentication locally and remotely and also mitigate network attacks. Finally, you will learn to patch bash vulnerability and monitor system logs for security. With several screenshots in each example, the book will supply a great learning experience and help you create more secure Linux systems.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Practical Linux Security Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Using system tools – Whowatch


While keeping a watch on the network, an administrator would also want to keep a watch on users who are currently logged on to the system and also check what each user is doing on the machine.

Whowatch is the perfect tool for all these tasks. It uses a simple text-based interface, which is easy to use and can display information about a username, user process, and also the type of connection being used, such as SSH and telnet.

Getting ready

Since Whowatch doesn't come as a preinstalled package in Linux, we have to install it to use it. The command to install Whowatch is as follows:

apt-get install whowatch

How to do it…

To utilize the Whowatch tool to its maximum benefit, we have to understand the details of the tool properly:

  1. To start using the tool, just enter the whowatch command and a screen will appear, as shown here:

    The preceding screen lists all the user accounts that are logged in.

  2. From the list, we can select any user account, and when we press Enter, we can...