Advice sought on makine web-server safe

[Timothy Murphy]

Craig White wrote:

> On Thu, 2005-11-17 at 04:29 +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote:
>> I want to allow general access
>> to the web-server (apache) on my desktop,
>> but not to any other services on this machine.
>> 
>> Could someone point me to a tutorial
>> (or other documentation) explaining
>> how to make this as safe as possible?
> ----
> is this a trick question? Did you want some complicated answer?

Why do you think it is a trick question?
I was indeed looking for a simple answer.

I have asked the same question in another forum,
and was surprised at a similar response to yours -
most people seeming to find the question bizarre.

I would have thought the number of Linux users
thinking of getting a cheap domain and setting up a web-server
was likely to be gr greatly.

I purchased a domain from www.eurodns.com for 18 euro/year,
and this set me thinking how to run a web-server from home
without too great a risk.

I looked around for advice on this -
a HOWTO or tutorial -
and was surprised not to find one.
 
> system-config-securitylevel
> 
> enable www (httpd)
> firewall enabled
> <OK>

Well, that is more or less what I have done -
so my question is, how secure will that be?

I was reading some apache security documents,
and they seemed frighteningly complicated.

You have reassured me the issue may not be as difficult
as I suspected.



-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland