Book Image

Linux: Powerful Server Administration

By : Jonathan Hobson, William Leemans, Uday Sawant, Oliver Pelz
Book Image

Linux: Powerful Server Administration

By: Jonathan Hobson, William Leemans, Uday Sawant, Oliver Pelz

Overview of this book

Linux servers are frequently selected over other server operating systems for their stability, security and flexibility advantages.This Learning Path will teach you how to get up and running with three of the most popular Linux server distros: Ubuntu Server, CentOS 7 Server, and RHEL 7 Server. We will begin with the Ubuntu Server and show you how to make the most of Ubuntu’s advanced functionalities. Moving on, we will provide you with all the knowledge that will give you access to the inner workings of the latest CentOS version 7. Finally, touching RHEL 7, we will provide you with solutions to common RHEL 7 Server challenges.This Learning Path combines some of the best that Packt has to offer in one complete, curated package. It includes content from the following Packt products: 1)Ubuntu Server Cookbook 2)CentOS 7 Linux Server Cookbook, Second Edition 3)Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Cookbook
Table of Contents (6 chapters)

Chapter 6. Providing Security

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • Locking down remote access and hardening SSH
  • Installing and configuring fail2ban
  • Working with a firewall
  • Forging the firewall rules by example
  • Generating self-signed certificates
  • Using secure alternatives to FTP

Introduction

This chapter is a collection of recipes that provides a solid framework on which a server can be made secure in almost any environment. Security is the cornerstone of a good administrator, and this chapter illustrates how quickly and easily you can design and implement a series of checkpoints that will deliver the protection you need.

Locking down remote access and hardening SSH

In this recipe, we will learn how to provide additional security measures in order to harden the secure shell environment. The Secure Shell (SSH) is the basic toolkit that provides remote access to your server. The actual distance to the remote machine is negligible, but the shell environment enables you to...