Yes, agreed. I have my box behind a NAT router, use a good password, I only run my unit as a regular user. I have all server services disabled at start-up. And I run updated software as much as possible.

fwiw I've often wondered why Pat sets up Slackware defaulting/recommended in packagetool/setup during slackware install to have servers running; whereas he has default actions to deny users to simple things like access their cd-rom, or shutdown.

it's no issue for people who used slackware before, but at first i was confused, was like hmm...do i need SSH, or inetD,? well he recommends it so i leave it on.

i think he should actually remove the ticks on sendmail, ssh, inetD, etc.

maybe he have different ticks for the full noobie install? dunno.

but i can see the writer of this threads issue with his logs and people trying to get in.

sounds like he needs a 30$ router/firewall too.

So does anyone have a link for help setting up IPTables rules? I used to use IP Chains in 2.6.15 which i got a simple script on a site to setup the base rules for me.
I notice that in the 2.6.16 kernels it has been removed in place of iptables...

There's a fine line between having a secure system and one that is secure. A good idea if you are really concerened about security is running smtp/pop traffic over ssh using port forwarding. Of course you can do that same with http traffic for that matter.

Cheers,
Ithaycu

If you're looking for a nice/gui firewall you can try out "guarddog".

Ken Z has made a package available over at linuxpackages.net

I've noticed when I upgraded to a kernel > 2.6.16 the guarddog that Ken has does not work. So I compiled my own and running that. It's the same version, just some reason ken's don't work

It's good in the fact that it pretty much denies everything, ping, sharing, ssh all by default.

Oh I just forgot, but if you looking for antivirus that loads in real nice with a gui into slackware 10.2 then check out "Antivir by Avira"

If you want real time virus scanning you'd have to redo your kerrnel and load in dazuko. Click my name I got a mini how to written somewhere here on the forums.

Thanks Xian!

I feel so dumb, I cant get ssh to work at all still. I can only get the pc on the server to crash X when I type startx on the client let alone get vnce over the ssh because of said issue...why's everything in gnu/linux take me a month to learn !! joke bye for now.

It's odd you're having SSH problems. I've never had it fail on an out of the box install.

Are you sure your network's configured properly? If you do "ssh 127.0.0.1" can you connect & log in?

Are you using an application like Reflection X to make the SSH X Session ? Or are you doing like a Telnet type open SSH connection?..
are you able to ssh into the macnhine without X? like an open SSH terminal style window?
Also, does it crash the system if you run X without SSH