Security

Some security tips — that will become more professional as time goes on:

1. Please confirm your passwords are secured.
2. Consider the strategies below to help secure your OS (downloading and/or semi-automatically installing recent security patches & updates). That is IF you find a reasonably fast Internet connection for your server, and are willing to take certain risks with packages/versions occasionally/potentially colliding.
3. Please read more about the 'iiab-admin' Linux user and group, which allow you to log in to IIAB's Admin Console:
   • https://github.com/iiab/iiab/tree/master/roles/iiab-admin
   • https://github.com/iiab/iiab-admin-console/blob/master/Authentication.md
4. If OpenVPN is installed, developers' ssh keys are also installed to enable remote login, for remote support during Beta programs and similar. You can disable this feature by running: "sudo rm -f /root/.ssh/authorized_keys". NOTE: If you later ask Internet-in-a-Box to reinstall OpenVPN, please note that developer keys will be reinstalled.
5. If you use Samba file sharing, see also: https://github.com/iiab/iiab/tree/master/roles/samba#samba-readme

For Debian, Raspberry Pi OS and Ubuntu servers

• Several in our Internet-in-a-Box (IIAB) community choose to run the following quasi-weekly:

  apt update
  apt dist-upgrade    (or "apt-get upgrade" if you do not want a new kernel etc)
  apt clean           (may be more comprehensive than "apt-get autoclean")

• In February 2017, James Cameron suggested some may prefer to use "apt" instead of "apt-get":

  apt update
  apt full-upgrade    (similar to above "apt-get dist-upgrade")
  apt clean           (may be more comprehensive than "apt-get autoclean")

He mentions there's a package for automated unattended upgrades, called "unattended-upgrades" for those who require that (and are willing to bear the risks!)

• Whichever path you take above, the final step is optional — to remove packages that were auto-installed to satisfy dependencies, but are no longer needed:

  apt autoremove      (some consider this last step risky, though no known IIAB/XSCE problems have resulted as of August 2024)

• In the distant past, "rpi-update" was also required to update firmware on Raspberry Pi SD cards.

For CentOS and Fedora servers

• Run yum -y update --security if your system already has yum-security installed, typically via yum install yum-security (this appears preinstalled within CentOS 7.x). Be warned that --security unfortunately updates very few packages, and is not prompt in updating (administrators may prefer to run "yum update openssl", "yum update openvpn" and similar frequently, to stay up-to-date with critical CentOS ESR packages/services).

• Please also consider commands:
  • yum updateinfo list security all
  • yum updateinfo list security installed
  • yum updateinfo list security available

• Many with high-bandwidth run more complete system updates, as follows: yum update or yum -y update (followed by yum clean all among those who were daring). Even if arguably this installs far too many untested and diverse updates/upgrades across the board, adding too many features not directly related to security. However this is still the way to go IF you want ALL packages updated (and are willing to face many unintended consequences, with a professional Linux administration staff to recover!)

Security Blowback / Survival Tips

• Please join the design discussion "Student Privacy / Medical Confidentiality best practices prior to copying/re-provisioning an IIAB" and help us refine FAQ.IIAB.IO entry "How do I back up, shrink & copy IIAB microSD cards?"