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Question

Server and Computer protection

Jul 12, 2012 10:48PM PDT

I am going to use my old G5 as a web server. It is running 10.5. Attached to my WFI are two computers running Lion. I need a program to help protect the server and my tow computers from being hacked. Any suggestions?

Discussion is locked

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Answer
You're kind of limited
Jul 13, 2012 12:25AM PDT

You're kind of limited by the fact that the PPC part of the Mac OS X ecosystem is pretty much a dried up withered husk at this point.

Honestly though, I would think that your standard router firewall would probably be enough for the task. A personal web server is likely going to be so low volume that it will never really attract the attention of any ne'er do wells. So you just need to be able to ward off automated scans, and a router firewall would do that just fine.

You also need to make sure that you keep your web server software up to date. This may mean that you have to set up something like Darwin Ports and compile your own custom Apache build. If you want people to be able to access your web server from the Internet, then that also means that automated scans can be run on it, and so if you're running a version with some known exploit, no firewall software in the world is going to protect you. If you're only going to make the web server accessible on the LAN, not the WAN, then you don't need to worry about that as much.

Basically, when you get down to it, about 90% of computer security comes down to the user not doing something stupid. It's not about buying some $2,000 IDS device or really expensive networking gear, it's about you the user/administrator only turning on and exposing those services which actually need to be on/exposed, making sure software is kept up to date, and actually fairly simple things of that nature. You will never stop an honest to god live person hacker if they want to get into your system, but you can make your systems look like more effort than it's worth to break into compared to the next guy.

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G5
Jul 13, 2012 3:50AM PDT

Actually, I will only be using the G5 as a server. Nothing of consequence (except of the 2 sites) will be on the G5. I really don't use it since I bought a new imac this year.

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Answer
RE: Web Server
Jul 20, 2012 11:55AM PDT

If your worried about having older Apache, Bind, etc... I would suggest just installing a different BSD onto the system. I know that FreeBSD is regularly updated with patches for PPC and is probably more stable than OSX, but not quite as user friendly. If it's strictly going to be a server, I would typically install webmin on the box and ditch the GUI totally.