Re: Mac most secure servers?
On Thu, Feb 22, 2001 at 10:58:27AM -0500, Steve Rudd wrote:
> I have been told by a "Mac-head" that the Mac is the most secure server and
> that it is significantly more secure than any unix system, including Linux.
>
> Any comments
It all depends on the admin. Given good tools to work with, the admin is
more likely to succeed. If a Mac-head who knows nothing but MacOS, but
knows every detail of MacOS, wanted to set up a server, they would probably
be able to set up a more secure server on MacOS than on Unix.
However, I don't know what the general quality of software for MacOS is.
If you're talking about MacOS ten running apache, then you can probably make
a pretty darn secure system.
Keep in mind where your advice is comming from. If Bill Gates told you NT
was the most secure OS, would you even have to ask...?
The most secure OS is the one you can do the best job securing. Some OSes
make it easier to learn to secure them. The classic example is OpenBSD,
which is "secure by default", because it's default install is to not run any
services. The trick is to turn on the service you want, and not have it
misconfigured in a security problem way. I haven't used OBSD, so I can't
comment. I would assume that it wouldn't be too hard, but it would take
some time to get familiar with the system. No matter what anybody tells
you, you can't make a secure server (at least, not long-term secure) without
investing some of your time to learn the system and keep up with security
announcements. (choosing a system which has good security announcements is
obviously important, or you might not hear about problems until it's too late.)
--
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@llama.nslug. , ns.ca)
"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack
my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BCE
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