Firewall question

[patnliz]

Hi All,

 

Thanks for all your help with my networking stuff before.

 

I have at last got my wireless n/w up and running and secure and have just tonight connected my mandrake box (wired ethernet) to the internet. I have 2 other windows boxes connected to the n/w but they are switched off at the moment while I make sure the firewall is set up ok. I am unsure about the firewall configuration as I am new to this and need a little help with it.

 

I have mandriva 2005 SE installed and have the following message n the security log:

 

2:11:41 drakfirewall[1007]: running: /bin/rpm -q --qf %{name} apache apache-mod_perl boa bind openssh-server ftp-server-krb5 wu-ftpd proftpd pure-ftpd sendmail postfix qmail imap courier-imap-pop telnet-server-krb5 samba-server cups bittorrent bittorrent-shadowsclient

 

Can anyone tell mewhat it means?.

 

Also for the first 10 or 15 minutes I was attached to the internet I had the following items allowed to be connected to by the internet in the firewall configuration:

 

Web Server

DNS

SSH

FTP

Ping

 

I kind of thought this was a bad thing so I have switched them all off now except Ping. otherwise the firewall has its default settings. While I want to continue to access the internet I also want to make my n/w is as secure as possible. Any best practise tips I can implement? My router also has a firewall with default settings on too.

 

Thanks

Pat

[devries]

The log: probably drakfirewall looking for installed server packages (rpm's).

 

You can safely disallow any server running on your pc if your not planning to use it as a webserver, mail server etcetc. (a server is a program that gets connected from outside. If there is no need for that just check the topbox on the configuration page)

[patnliz]

Thanks for the info, Augustus. I want to eventually host my own website and want to host .NET webservices/webapps and .NET ASPs and EJBs/JSPs (just as a technical excercise). I guess I should try to source some free webservers/appservers to host these. Any recommendations about which are best and how to make them secure?

 

Thanks again

[devries]

The only way to make things secure is know what you're doing. :)

 

App servers: there is a mono appserver and ofcourse jboss you can try.