Linux server advice 7493

On 14 Nov 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.misc, in article

* Linux Consultants Guide version: 8.0 author: Joshua Drake available formats: 1. HTML (read online) 2. HTML (read online, single file, 1.4M) 3. HTML (tarred and gzipped package, 365k) 4. PDF (2.7M) 5. PostScript (gzipped, 514K) 6. text (gzipped, 141K) 7. PluckerDB (794K) Replacement for the Consultants-HOWTO. A listing of companies providing commercial Linux related support. For further information,

While the copy I have lists 26 people-companies in Colorado, but all but one are East of the divide. That one exception is an individual a few blocks up the street in Grand Junction. There are ten more listed in Utah, but all seem to be in the Logan to Provo area. I can offer no opinion on the skill-value-what-ever of these consultants.

That's obviously a possibility, but no professional recommends exposing a windoze box to the internet.

I don't know how large the company is, nor how much Internet exposure you have, so obviously I can't gauge the risks. Bolting down a server can be very simple, or extremely difficult - depending on what it's doing, and how widely it needs to be available. Internet mail - relatively simple. Web server - "that depends".

Understood.

The other problem is that the "popular" distributions tend to have a lot of extra features that can increase the risk. Remember, if it's not installed, it can't be exploited. None the less, you appear to feel that the "install it and secure it for me - I'll handle the daily cleaning of the litter box" mode is viable (I tend to agree). Hmmm - college clbutt? If that was local, is the instructor interested in earning some coin on the side?

Of course

Then maybe the boss should configure it, and take the responsibility when it gets torched. Again - no "professional" in the mail business is going to recommend that risk. That also goes for other windoze based mail systems, like Lotus Notes, and the like.

Agreed - especially when you factor in the costs when the windoze solution gets rooted or catches the latest virus.

What do you expect the consultants to do? Set it up? Run nightly backups? Install security fixes the moment they become available? Come by and pat the server on the head daily ("Nice server, good server! Have a biscuit")? Or might "remote" buttistance after the install (perhaps an SSH connection on an as-needed basis) be enough. There's 20+ enbreasties in the Denver area that would probably like the business ;-)

Old guy