13 Linux security tutorials

Fighting the good fight for better security is a never-ending battle. See how some sysadmin warriors have approached it.

Posted: December 23, 2020 by Ken Hess (Sudoer alumni)

Top 13 security articles of 2020 — Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Securing systems is a continuous battle for sysadmins. There's no such thing as secure but there are some things you can do to better protect your systems and your users. And, just because there is a global pandemic, security issues didn't go away or subside in the least in 2020. Security requires constant vigilance and reliance on developers and programmers to deliver secure code, security updates, and documentation on how to better protect our systems and users.

Since so many sysadmins work alone or in small groups, finding good security information and implementing it is difficult. Tight budgets and the demands of daily production add to that difficulty. Our aim in posting these tutorials is to help you to quickly identify trouble spots and to provide information that will help you in your quest to better secure your systems.

The following 13 posts were some of the most read security tutorials for 2020.

Adding a Linux system to an Active Directory domain - old keys

How to join a Linux system to an Active Directory domain

Do you need to centrally manage Linux systems and user accounts under an Active Directory domain? Here's how to do it.

SSH password automation in Linux with sshpass

The sshpass utility helps administrators more easily manage SSH connections in scripts.

Making certificates available to CLI Tools

Making CA certificates available to Linux command-line tools

How to use the ca-certificates package to manage Certificate Authority certificates for command-line utilities.

Eight ways to protect SSH access on your system

The Secure Shell is a critical tool in the administrator's arsenal. Here are eight ways you can better secure SSH, and some suggestions for basic SSH centralization.

Five best practices for administering remote systems

Remote work is challenging but here are five tips to keep your workflow in good shape.

5 ways to harden a new system with Ansible

Use Ansible to harden newly-deployed servers for consistent configurations with security in mind.

RPM and GPG: How to verify Linux packages before installing them

Are you sure that your package is safe from corruption or malicious activity? Here's how signature verification can help.

3 antimalware solutions for Linux systems

If you still believe that Linux can't be infected by malware, think again and then install these three applications to detect and prevent problems.

Introducing web application firewalls to sysadmins

An introduction to web application firewalls for Linux sysadmins

You've used host-based firewalls and network firewalls, but have you ever considered implementing a web application firewall? You should.

Linux security: Protect your systems with fail2ban

Linux security is a constant struggle but you can use fail2ban to protect authenticated services.

Using ssh-keygen and sharing for key-based authentication in Linux

SSH key-based authentication is helpful for both security and convenience. See how to generate and share keys.

Linux security: Intrusion detection and prevention

If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, an ounce of detection is only worth an ounce.

Setting up multi-factor authentication on Linux systems

Pluggable Authentication Modules allow Linux to work with Google Authenticator and other OTP tools to add two-factor security to your system.

Topics: Linux Linux administration Security Year in review

Ken Hess

Ken has used Red Hat Linux since 1996 and has written ebooks, whitepapers, actual books, thousands of exam review questions, and hundreds of articles on open source and other topics. Ken also has 20+ years of experience as an enterprise sysadmin with Unix, Linux, Windows, and Virtualization. More about me

13 Linux security tutorials

Ken Hess

Try Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Download it at no charge from the Red Hat Developer program.

13 Linux security tutorials

Ken Hess

Try Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Download it at no charge from the Red Hat Developer program.

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