Introduction
Installation and setup
Reliability
Hackers
Backups
Encryption
Viruses and trojans
Intrusion prevention
Intrusion detection
Resources
top and ps
Secure SHell (ssh)
rsync
lsof
tcpdump
netstat

Installation and setup

To set your machine up so that you have maximum security and reliability you need to pay attention to the following:
  1. During installation install the minimum number of services you need. Don't click on "Install everything"!

  2. After installation look through what services have been set up for you by the installation scripts and get rid of any that you don't really need.

  3. Implement backups.

  4. Look at making access to your computer more secure.

  5. Keep track of known bugs and install applicable patches.

  6. Use hard-to-guess passwords.
Generally speaking you can't just install and configure your operating system and any other software and then forget about it for the next couple of years as many users do.

Use linuxconf to look at the configuration of your computer and enable/disable the services you don't need.

If you do run inetd disable all the services it runs that you don't need.

Once your computer is configured and running use ifconfig and top or ps to see what processes are really running on your computer.