Fork bombing a Linux machine as a non-root user

[M.Rudra]

Hello All and  thanks Jeff, Gene, Arthur, ....  all others who helped
solve my doubts.
Now I understand and realise that my earlier fears about fork bombing
are unfounded.

Jeff Kinz <jkinz at kinz.org> wrote:
> Does your home network look like either of these two configurations?
> setup A:
>    Internet                            single
>   cable/DSL--------------------------- Computer
>    device

This is my setup and how can i protect this home PC from unauthorised
access *via the internet* ?  I have 2 harddisks, one for Linux (use
Fedora core 1) and another for Windows.

1] Is a firewall software a default setup in Fedora ? How will I know
or find if it is running on my machine ?
2] You mentioned that iptables or ipchains firewall software can be
setup using 1 ethernet NIC card. If fedora has a default firewall
software do i still need to do so ? Also, there are only two users on
this PC so unauthorised access (if any) will only be via the internet.

Gene, where to find resources for statefull filtering by blocking
ports, as mentioned earlier. How does one go about it ?

Scot, you had mentioned locking unused printer ports, etc..  How can i
do that, do suggest other online resources.

Jonathan Berry <berryja at gmail.com> wrote:
> If you are not using it, I would suggest that you disable sshd.  It
> allows you to login remotely (read over the internet).  As long as you

Using a GUI tool (forgot the name), as root, i have disabled in and
outgoing telnet, incoming ssh (same as sshd?) and rlogin after reading
it was unsafe. Do i need to  do that for each user seperately ?
Among other precautions, we *dont* access the internet via Windows and
when logged in as root on Linux. Please tell me if my PC is reasonably
safe ?
thanks, MR