Book Image

Practical Linux Security Cookbook - Second Edition

By : Tajinder Kalsi
Book Image

Practical Linux Security Cookbook - Second Edition

By: Tajinder Kalsi

Overview of this book

Over the last few years, system security has gained a lot of momentum and software professionals are focusing heavily on it. Linux is often treated as a highly secure operating system. However, the reality is that Linux has its share of security ?aws, and these security ?aws allow attackers to get into your system and modify or even destroy your important data. But there’s no need to panic, since there are various mechanisms by which these ?aws can be removed, and this book will help you learn about different types of Linux security to create a more secure Linux system. With a step-by-step recipe approach, the book starts by introducing you to various threats to Linux systems. Then, this book will walk you through customizing the Linux kernel and securing local files. Next, you will move on to managing user authentication both locally and remotely and mitigating network attacks. Later, you will learn about application security and kernel vulnerabilities. You will also learn about patching Bash vulnerability, packet filtering, handling incidents, and monitoring system logs. Finally, you will learn about auditing using system services and performing vulnerability scanning on Linux. By the end of this book, you will be able to secure your Linux systems and create a robust environment.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Contributors
Packt Upsell
Preface
Index

Installing and booting from a kernel


After having spent a lot of time configuring and compiling the kernel, you can now start the process of installing the kernel to the local system.

Getting ready

Before starting with the installation of the kernel, make sure you back up all your important data on the system. Also make a copy of /boot/ onto external, storage which is formatted in the FAT32 filesystem. This will help repair the system if the installation process fails for any reason.

How to do it...

Once the kernel is compiled, you can start following the commands here to proceed with installing the kernel:

  1. Install the drivers by running the command, if activated as modules. The command will copy the modules to a sub-directory of /lib/modules:

  1. Now run the following command to install the actual kernel:
make install

The preceding command will show the following output:

This command executes /sbin/installkernel. The new kernel will be installed into /boot/vmlinuz-{version}. If a symbolic link already...