Congrats!!

Most of the information shown during boot is replicated in the log files (/var/log/) so if you see any errors or failures check the files in there; messages, syslog, auth.log, daemon.log

I think your web services will be quite safe until you open port 80 on your DSL router.

Yeah, I'd like to just add it to my LAN. This would be ideal so I can figure out how to do it and how difficult it will be.

Currently, I'm plugged into the internet through my router. I also did the "netinstall" and installed Debian through their debian.org "mirror." By being plugged in to the router (and being able to do the install using that website mirror) aren't I already online and exposed to the world?

Yeah, I'd like to just add it to my LAN. This would be ideal so I can figure out how to do it and how difficult it will be.

Currently, I'm plugged into the internet through my router. I also did the "netinstall" and installed Debian through their debian.org "mirror." By being plugged in to the router (and being able to do the install using that website mirror) aren't I already online and exposed to the world?


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Ok. I will need to look into this overscan problem.. I named the machine "server," and when on the command line I only get to see "erver" haha.

So, can I go ahead and start setting up the packages I want to use to try to get familiar with the system? Will any of the file sharing, web hosting, streaming, etc. packages require me to open any of these ports that will expose me to the world? I just don't want to be playing around with the system trying to learn it, then all of a sudden I get hacked or something, haha.

I really wouldn't worry about it. If you don't have any setting in your router pointing any port on your "server" then you don't exist (unless _"THEY"_ hack the machine you are writing this on ;-) )

It might have been worthwhile installing a desktop environment (selected during the install) just to make it easier on yourself. You could always disable it later on to save CPU resources.
As root you could type;

apt-get update; apt-get install desktop-base

indeed, routers by default forward NOTHING unless told to, consumer routers by default allow all outbound traffic but no inbound, professional grade routers allow NOTHING by default, so unless a hole is explicitly opened then they would have to install a backdoor on your workstation and use that to hack your server.

as for the 'overscan' issue? try fiddling with the controls on your monitor.

Well, I have a basic (old, like 2003ish) Linksys router from Wal-mart. Then only thing ever done with it is allowing wireless access from my ps3, iphone, and the girlie's netbook. I don't believe I've ever had to open ports for anything (maybe my old roommates 360?). Even then, I would assume the 360 would have been considered "outbound traffic" still... It is WEP encrypted though.

Yeah, I thought about the monitor buttons, but it was getting kind of late (the install was a slow process, lol, I was playing Starcraft at the same time), so I just shut it down once I made it command line.

I would be more worried about people cracking your WEP than hacking your Linux box.

You do realise that 2003 is, so last-decade. Is the firmware up-to-date? ;-)

Hahah, yeah I do... It may have been 2005 actually, as I got in college after graduating high school in 04, lol. I don't believe I've seen anything asking me to update it, so I'm not positive. I've never had any issues, so I would assume it's updated, lol. It may have been updated when I set it up a year ago when we moved to where we currently are now, but as I said, I don't remember seeing anything about updates, lol. I'll look into tonight or tomorrow.

Routers don't usually badger you for updates. Check the installed firmware version from the routers setup web page with that on the manufacturers support web page.

Cool. Will do.

Hey Guys,

So, I started to play with the server box last night to see if I can start to familiarize myself with Linux. I didn't get too far into it, but I find a "dmidecode" command that list all of my detected hardware... so I ran it. I was trying to figure out if I'm missing any drivers. Everything seemed to be found and I couldn't tell if I was missing any drivers or anything (coming from a windows environment, lol). I did find something that said "UUID: Not present" or something like that.

Any ideas of what this UUID is and is it something I need to find and install? I did some brief googling, and only found information for downloading/installing the UUID (although I didn't find anything very specific to Debian). Not much on what it is...

UUID is simply a unique identifier of a device, particularly drives/partitions, it can be used in place of a raw device node (such as /dev/hda1), since those can in theory change, and prevent the system from functioning, but UUIDs don't change

Ok. I think I understand. Instead of seeing my HDD as "/dev/hda1" I can set the UUID to name /dev/hda1 something else like "harddrive60gb"? Is this a recommended practice? Should I be using this UUID and how?

grub.conf
fstab
recommended? that's up to you, but the use of UUIDs provide more consistency, especially if you change your hardware from time to time. Particularly with portable drives (memory cards, thumb drives, usb hard drives for instance can change from /dev/sdB to /dev/sdC to /dev/sdD from time to time, or if you have more than one they are assigned in the order in which they are plugged in, but a UUID doesn't matter what they /dev/sdX letter they are assigned, the UUID doesn't change)