[Zimwy]

Hi,
I'll be running a server (OS 10.2.6) and it's my first time. It's a Web/File/FTP/Music server for myself and friends at school. I was wondering if anybody here had any advice for good server maintance ideas or anything like that?

I've split the drive into an OS X partition and a files partition. I've enabled journaling on both partitions. Does anyone have any advice for not too hard to understand security apps? Any, things in the system I should enable? Scripts I should know to run? Logs to check?

Thanks for any advice!
gabe

[Burana]

Originally posted by Zimwy:
Hi,
I'll be running a server (OS 10.2.6) and it's my first time. It's a Web/File/FTP/Music server for myself and friends at school. I was wondering if anybody here had any advice for good server maintance ideas or anything like that?

I've split the drive into an OS X partition and a files partition. I've enabled journaling on both partitions. Does anyone have any advice for not too hard to understand security apps? Any, things in the system I should enable? Scripts I should know to run? Logs to check?

These are my views as a Solaris Admin (I am still waiting for my first Mac, the G5). Some hints may be overkill:

-On a server, I recommend a separate partition for /var (symolic link to /private/var)and a separate partition for /Users. It prevents a crash of the whole server in case that the log files under /var or the homedirectories get full.

-Separate partition for swap. As a rule, the size of the partition is 1-1.5 x the installed memory. This should prevent fragmentation.

-For security reasons you should replace ftp with sftp. It is sufficent to have SSH running, because sftp is tunneled over ssh.

-Always have firewall enable for ports not used.

-Keep up installing (security-)patches.

-Keep an eye on syslogs (under /var directory).

-Use strong password policy (possible in OS X).

You can't be too carefull when allowing access over the internet...

Good luck!

Regards
Burana

[Zimwy]

Thanks for all that info. I have a few questions:

-By Strong Passwords, do you mean just ones that have both letters and numbers, and aren't dictionary words, or is this an option I can check somewhere?

-I've looked under /var/log/system.log and there's lots of stuff there. What sort of things would I be looking for? Intrusion attempts? Things like that? How would I find them?

Thanks again,
gabe

[Burana]

Originally posted by Zimwy:
By Strong Passwords, do you mean just ones that have both letters and numbers, and aren't dictionary words, or is this an option I can check somewhere?

That's right. But because I don't have a mac yet I can't tell you how to set password policies and enable password aging. Maybe somebody else can help?

-I've looked under /var/log/system.log and there's lots of stuff there. What sort of things would I be looking for? Intrusion attempts? Things like that? How would I find them?

Mainly you should look for error messages and warnings. A good administrator always keeps an eye on system logs. Sometimes you can prevent some problems, before they occure.

Beside that, failed logins will be logged as well.

Regards

Burana