Best practices for the Linux home office, part 2

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Last time we began talking about using Linux in a small office by discussing what to look for in hardware and the operating system. Once you've settled on your base system, it's time to connect it to the Internet, and that brings up concerns about your systems' security.

Linux owes much of its growing popularity to its reputation for good security; but just as the threats to your computers' security rapidly evolve, maintaining the security of your systems is an ongoing process. The overriding principle of security is to "fail closed," or turn things off by default. If you don't need a service running, turn it off; if you don't need a firewall port open, close it; if you don't need a piece of software, remove it. Above all, good security is a matter of good hygiene.

First and foremost, you should immediately install any security updates as soon as you've installed your operating system. You should also automate security updates. Most vendors provide simple command-line tools for this, such as APT, yum, and up2date, that you can run periodically from cron, the standard Unix scheduling tool.

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