Using Fedora as firewall.

[Rodolfo J. Paiz]

At 06:50 4/18/2004, Preston wrote:
>On Sun, 2004-04-18 at 01:59, Harry Hoffman wrote:
> > If you have more than one account you shouldn't be running X!!!!!!!!!!
>
>Why is this? And what does that mean for those of us who use Fedora as
>our only OS on our only computer, connecting to the Internet directly
>and using the firewall? The ports are protected, right? Including X.

Shutting down X is just one more thing you can do to reduce the risk on 
that machine/server. If X is not necessary and can be safely eliminated, 
then by all means do so. If, however, you have a box on which you need/want 
X, then yes... iptables does block all those ports as well when implemented 
with the standard, intelligent "deny everything and specifically allow only 
what you need" philosophy.

As Eric so elegantly pointed out, "Security is like an ogre (in that ogres 
are like onions)." For any given situation, employ as many layers of 
security as you can... but you will not always be able to (or desire to) 
implement all *possible* security measures.


-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz
rpaiz at simpaticus.com
http://www.simpaticus.com