I spoke too soon sorry.

I'm in and out these days...with work and personal stuff. I'll lurk and see if I can find a way to pitch in...I really do think this is a worthwhile effort...just wish I could do more.

unSpawn,

I stopped reading the posts after page 1, so forgive me if I missed something. This is a great endeavor you are undertaking. We' d like to see each forum do this, and if they did, and posted it as a *must read* before posting, it would probably cut out most of the repeat posts.

I have been using Windoze for over 10 years. In 1999 I ran a dual boot with RedHat but was unwilling to *learn* the different terminology. A few weeks ago I installed RedHat 9 (2.4.20-8) on a second hdd and have actually reinstalled 2 other times. Once, because I copied and pasted some help and *still* managed to hose the system. The other time because I had so many procs running (I chose Everything), it was slower than XP. Now I don't have all I want, but it is faster, and I will learn what to dump and what to add.

So, because security is a big issue where I live, and I am *learning by doing*, I am willing to help in whatever way you can use me. I will proofread, or walk through the steps and try it, or whatever. I want to give back to this community.

Basic HOW-TO tutorials are definitely needed, from reading the posts. There are so many basic things where the terminology is different, and someone like myself who can get around and manipulate a windoze box just seem like that 4-year old you mentioned.

I am training my 2-year old daughter. Each time I assemble a new computer, she's right there. We have a saying about learning in China: man man lai (little by little). That's how I'm learning Linux, and I am NOT going to give up this time.

When I can find reasonable replacements for Adobe Photoshop, PageMaker, and Macromedia Dreamweaver I will be Windoze free! I am looking forward to that day. The Gimp is okay, and I was using it until the other day when I couldn't move a type layer I put onto a background. Rebooted into Windoze, because I could use Photoshop and get it done.

Let me know. I would appreciate the opportunity to help you, and I believe my past experience with Windoze, and trying to cross over to the Linux platform, would benefit you in that I understand what I want the system to do, but also know when the terminology is above someone who isn't quite familiar.


/bruce

spurious: Thanks for contributing the link to the "Tinyminds Cheat Sheets". I'll have a look at it.

tcaptain: "I'll lurk and see if I can find a way to pitch in...I really do think this is a worthwhile effort...just wish I could do more."
Well, you contributed a lot up to now, hope you'll make time to help write. It really would be appreciated. Btw, why didn't you post this on the list? I mean, that's what it for and besides it's getting too quiet :-[

Chinaman: "I stopped reading the posts after page 1, so forgive me if I missed something.(..) So, because security is a big issue where I live, and I am *learning by doing*, I am willing to help in whatever way you can use me. I will proofread, or walk through the steps and try it, or whatever. I want to give back to this community."

Thanks for dropping by and thanks for your willingness to contribute. Please read this thread (you really should), look up the mailinglist URI and add yourself.
Traffic has been zilch for the past two weeks but it should get lively again before end of this week.

Well darn it if you aren't being gracious Seriously, I'm really glad you consider I contribute a lot and in the very near future I'll make a big effort.
The thing with why I replied here and not on the list is that I can access this website from work, but email I can only access from home in the evenings, precisely the times where I've been especially busy lately...However, my SO is now recovered, my work project (that I've been working evenings on when the mainframe's down) is almost done and my mother in law is coming over to spend a couple of weeks which will give me some free time

Okay, unSpawn, I read the whole thread. When I originally posted I joined the mailing list but never received anything. Guess I messed up. Did it again this morning and got the mail and returned the confirm. I read the archives, and to this point it didn't seem like anything for us *newbies* to help with, unless I'm mistaken. It looks really good.

I have 2 computers networked, with only a router for security. Running RH9 and XP on this box. Will drop XP when something to replace Photoshop and PageMaker and Dreamweaver is found.

I will be glad to proofread and also to test on this machine. I am also building and repairing computers all the time. Will be installing RH9 on another box probably today or tomorrow. Going to get a new mobo, cpu, mem, and video card first - then will do a dual boot RH9 / XP install.

Thanks! I'm excited to be participating in your project.

Sorry for the late reply ppl.

Tcaptain: Let's just see how it goes...
Chinaman: thanks for joining in! Currently project work is at an alltime low, but I'll get it going.

unSpawn,

I'm looking forward to it with great expectation. This week I will format my second computer (laptop) and install a Linux distro. Man, am I excited! One M$ free machine! I'll be ready to proof the newbie How-To and test it on that machine for sure, as well as this Linux box.

I have just installed RH9 and was looking for a n00bie guide to security.

I have searched the net and am already confused with daemon's, ip tables etc....

I will have to check back to this forum on a reggy basis.


Chinaman: there are a couple of progs out there that will let you run your windows programs on your RH box. I am a real n00bie with linux and have'nt got that far myself but have seen them mentioned on IRC. I think one is called WineX or Xwine (something like that). :S

good luck

Medic6666

Hello all, I just joined this forum tonight after 10 months of playing with linux on a leased server, and taking a basic unix and linux class at the U of MO - St. Louis.

Consider me a newbie...

If anyone working on "tutorials" would like to call me on my toll free number, I can tape record what you would like organized into the tutorials, then transcribe them and incorporate the results into html pages if desired...

Good luck... many of us just experiencing the initial excitement of linux would benefit enormously from tutorials that take "baby steps"...

the-muse

P.S. [EDIT]: Just email me and I'll send you my phone number...

im not that new to linux but i am very new to linux security so if this tutorial or whatever you want to call it gets done let me know so i can have a go at it =)

P.S. china man try the gimp to replace adobe photoshop

hey, I just read this, so maybe someone has already offered this, but anyway ... I'd be willing to translate the document to dutch, and I could attempt french (though that's getting a bit rusty )

I'll sign up to the mailing list

try this URL:

http://www.linsec.ca/

and if that does not work you may use:
http://linsec.ca/

A fellow I know named Vincent Danen runs the Twiki there and anyone can contribute and if you contact him you can get permission to reuse for LQ I think. Vincent contributes to the security team for Mandrake quite thoroughly and has large amounts of Mandrake-given authority over the distro-- he does not to my knowledge own any large part of Mandrake the company, but has proven his worth many times over to them.

He runs both BSD and Linux himself, and has run BSD as long or longer than Linux and can set up a Twiki in a very short time (um, 15-20 minutes???). He also hosts Twikis at very affordable rates. Twikis are variants of WikiWikiWiki's and all registered users can contribute and correct errors in material, and it is something where the Twiki builds pages by topic and tracks them including editting. Questions are valid Twiki input.

Some brief things:

What is iptables??? iptables is the core of Linux firewall security, and can be configured in a GUI or tuned in a console. One decent configurator is called GuardDog. there is software in most linux distros that will base configure your firewall for you, and if Paranoid is offered do not use that option as you will find user suddenly lost 90% of his default privileges. typically Medium scrutiy level is enough.

Think of daemons as NOT demonic, rather they are an offshoot of Unix and BSD work adn are the equivalents of low-level Windows services that work under the hood to give you things like printing, email, display on monitor, and with the help of higher layered programs they can help run scanning, help your digital camera connect and feed digital data into linux so you can work on it, and networking is the scope and area some daemons also provide low level services for.

root on your computer gets to control what runs, and things you do not know about do not kill for fun as you might get big repercussions that you see well after the fact-- instead ask here with details you know and ask if you do not know how to get info you need.

IPTables, a bit more:

IPTABLES is capable of almost handling things like an old (say 4-5 year old) Cisco router, you can block connects or allow them by port and port type and direction, disallow certain computers whose IPs you know from accessing your computer, and generally get it to alos log events that it blocks or that it allows if you want a running report on what is happening network wise on your machine. It works with the kernel and other daemons to do so, events can be emailled to you as root on your own machine if you write a simple script to get that to happen.

LINUX, YOUR O\S, where to find info:

Essentially you have an operating system in your hands that can be used as you choose once you learn things reasonably well. The best single book I know for Linux is about 1\15th of the textual content web ATM. More specifically, look up
iptables
at
http://www.google.com/linux
(no end slash if you use Linux, it is a subsearch engine of google for Linux things adn it knows a lot because the system engineers on google have been known to use it to research things themselves quickly as google runs ON LINUX.)

Search for iptables, GuardDog, The Linux Documentation Project, and
"LINUX: Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition"
which is the title of a classic written in 2001 about Linux basics and file systems and what Daemons are and is free as a .pdf (acrobat reader) file and is alos printable and if you want a printed copy the same title at http://www.bamm.com/ entered into their book title search will get you a listing with the author as Andrew Sheer and you can subsidize the work he puts into Rute that way if you want. Advise is read through the pdf, print if you can run 640 pages through your laser printer economically, and if not print parts and put them in a binder by page number and print the index and table of contents so you can find things faster in the acrobat reader or in xpdf which is built into most Linux software these days and can read pdf files including this one. Many Linux docs are online,thousands of pages worth on many topics (GIMP, the image editting software most widely used for Linux folks, has a Manual called "GIMP User's Manual" and that is about 900 pages of pdf file). Anything under the GNU Publications License is legally free to read and use and share and any revenue (profits) from printed works tends to be put back into updating documentation of the documents you buy.

Anything this user (jdii1215) posts can be considered released under the GPL and if the HTML volunteer wants to section this and tender for the FAQ please feel encouraged to do so. any others who wish their material so released please post in their threads or answers accordingly and quite a FAQ SECTION can be built out of the material already onsite if many so agree.

John.

Soz peeps, haven't been paying much attention to the thread.
Glad to see tho it still draws attention to our wee project.
The mailinglist is not FFA, so please sign up. Traffic is WAY LOW these days, but the embers are still glowing so to speak...

Medic6666/ranger12002
Join the mailinglist?


the-muse
If anyone working on "tutorials" would like to call me on my toll free number, I can tape record what you would like organized into the tutorials, then transcribe them and incorporate the results into html pages if desired...
I don't know if any writers will use your services, but thanks anyway for offering, I appreciate it. I believe the main document should be SGML'ized. Not my cup of tea, but it is a mature standard that allows for (easy?) translation to other forms of publishing.

Good luck... many of us just experiencing the initial excitement of linux would benefit enormously from tutorials that take "baby steps"...
Thanks. We all can use some encouragement (hmm, or was it a kick in the head?).


ceedeedoos
Thanks for signing up. We need all the help we can get.


jdii1215
Thanks for offering the Linsec URI and usage of content.
I believe someone already mentioned Linsec, but I'll look at it again.

Well, newbies do not know SGML, many of us, and it is not my cup of tea. However, I know Twiki and quite a bit of HTML. There is a hypersimple little website here that is all my code which could be used as an example of hypersimple code approach to websites that are mostly textual:

http://www.johndanielsonii.com/

It runs on a BSD or Linux server on GoDaddy's hosting service, which is also a direct InterNIC registrar and provides registration valid for ICANN also. They use a not-so-huge registrar, but most Linux website owners can keep their image at home of the website and FTP reload with gFTP at need, or with Quanta Gold. Quanta Gold is a TheKompany project and they are a very good software pub who has an international team working on Quanta Gold and you get almost unlimited free updates for about 1\8th the Cost of Macromedia's products (which do not run on Linux itself but will run OK on Win4Lin 5.0 running Windows 98SE inside it).

The nice thing about W3C HTML is that if you do it simply you can strip the code and use the content verbatim otherwise in a word processor like OpenOffice Writer (see http://www.openoffice.org/ ). the Power Article I have on my website as above is a nice way to understand machine glitches and also if you want that for the FAQ I can make it available free to LQ. Basicly, I used hyper-simple code so I could Search-and-replace code stripping. I made it Opera and Netscape compatible, so Mozilla should see it fine and if you like the basic code ideas and lack of DIVs than you can live with this ok.

SGML????

Surely its just a language used to define other languages. Its a bit to complicated for real use in coding isnt it??

Ive worked with SGML but never heard of it being used other than for defining new language sets e.g. HTML XML etc.