Ash Narayanan wrote:
I did some Goolging of my own and it seams as though past conversations by users have been indexed in the [1]"Securing Debian Manual."Wow, what has this thread turned into!?It started off as a simple question that could have been answered with one of two possible replies, namely, the solution itself or a suggestion to move this query to a more appropriate mailing list. Thank you to all of you whose replies fell in either of these two categories.To the rest of you....what is wrong with you?If you don't want to help, don't. Stop wasting time. Did it ever ocur to you that not everyone out there likes using a search engine? I was directed to debian-security by an ex-colleague since one of our servers uses debian. So I used it to ask a question that wasn't exactly related to security (although if you must know, it stemmed from another discussion on debian-security that did relate to security and one of my concerns was the version number of my system). So what? The responses I've received from you make me feel like I've committed a crime against humanity!
1. http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-howto/ch12.en.html#s12.1.10
*http://tinyurl.com/2328fxt*This question and answer do have certain relevance to security, much of which might be better answered instead by "debsecan". However the relevant security question(s) of "What version of Debian is this?" and perhaps even better is "Can I compare the version of box X and box Y and/or even determine how up-to-date a box is?" Should be addressed if not by some FAQ or Wiki Article, but by a thread on this list.
I don't feel I'm able to do this, however I can say that I myself originally joined this list to discuss issues of storing and handling cryptographic material and since have gleaned only a small amount of insight. I do feel that this list might have a handful of users that are confused about it's purpose, well actually I'd wager that there could even be multiple groups lobbying for control of the content of this list.
From what I can tell debian-security is listed under [2]User and not under [3]Developer lists, so it stands to reason that users should be encouraged to seek assistance from this list's members.
2. http://lists.debian.org/users.html 3. http://lists.debian.org/devel.html
Can you imagine stepping in to a pet store with a question about your pets symptoms to be abused by the store attendant for not going to a vet instead?Ash PS: I've solved my problem. Thanks to those that actually helped.