Book Image

Mastering Linux Security and Hardening - Third Edition

By : Donald A. Tevault
3.7 (7)
Book Image

Mastering Linux Security and Hardening - Third Edition

3.7 (7)
By: Donald A. Tevault

Overview of this book

The third edition of Mastering Linux Security and Hardening is an updated, comprehensive introduction to implementing the latest Linux security measures, using the latest versions of Ubuntu and AlmaLinux. In this new edition, you will learn how to set up a practice lab, create user accounts with appropriate privilege levels, protect sensitive data with permissions settings and encryption, and configure a firewall with the newest firewall technologies. You’ll also explore how to use sudo to set up administrative accounts with only the privileges required to do a specific job, and you’ll get a peek at the new sudo features that have been added over the past couple of years. You’ll also see updated information on how to set up a local certificate authority for both Ubuntu and AlmaLinux, as well as how to automate system auditing. Other important skills that you’ll learn include how to automatically harden systems with OpenSCAP, audit systems with auditd, harden the Linux kernel configuration, protect your systems from malware, and perform vulnerability scans of your systems. As a bonus, you’ll see how to use Security Onion to set up an Intrusion Detection System. By the end of this new edition, you will confidently be able to set up a Linux server that will be secure and harder for malicious actors to compromise.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
1
Section 1: Setting up a Secure Linux System
9
Section 2: Mastering File and Directory Access Control (DAC)
12
Section 3: Advanced System Hardening Techniques
20
Other Books You May Enjoy
21
Index

Understanding fapolicyd

The File Access Policy Daemon (fapolicyd) is a fairly new addition to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its various clones. It’s free-as-in-speech software so that anyone can use it, but so far neither Ubuntu nor SUSE have made it available for their distros. To get a quick feel for how it works, go back to the virtual machine that you’ve just been using. First, move the entire derod-linux-amd64 directory over to the top level of the / partition:

[donnie@localhost ~]$ sudo mv dero_linux_amd64/ /
[sudo] password for donnie: 
[donnie@localhost ~]$ 

By moving the directory instead of copying it, your ownership of the directory and its files will be preserved:

[donnie@localhost /]$ ls -ld dero_linux_amd64/
drwx------. 3 donnie donnie 4096 Jan  2 15:42 dero_linux_amd64/
[donnie@localhost /]$

Now, copy the script that you created over to /usr/local/bin/:

[donnie@localhost dero_linux_amd64]$ cd
[donnie@localhost ~]$ sudo cp donnie_script...