Disclaimer: This is a long article. I haven’t collected some nice configuration settings here for the sake of it. There are other hardening guides but some fall short on explaining the functionalities to be enabled or disabled. Every step is shortly, and hopefully clearly, explained so any reader can grasp the main idea of every […]
How to harden Apache HTTP
Why FreeBSD
In the following lines you will find a brief but sort of complete explanation about what is FreeBSD and why FreeBSD might be of your interest. If you are already a Mac or Linux user this could be more relevant for you than you would imagine. Enjoy. FreeBSD is an operating system, a unix-like operating […]
How to install Docker on Ubuntu 18.04
Operating System level virtualization is hitting hard now, as much as VM’s did just a few years ago. Docker is the popular framework for this matter, the new kid on the block so to speak. This is the hot spot now and if anyone wants to appear knowledgeable about system administration knowing this technology is […]
How to install Apache in FreeBSD with ports
Or better said, how to install Apache the hard way. As mentioned before and many other times FreeBSD has two ways to install software. The easy one which is provided by the pkgng tool. And the not so easy one, ports. With ports you compile the programs and you can set the options the way […]
How to mitigate Spectre and Meltdown on an HP Proliant server with Ubuntu
As recently announced in a previous article I wanted to write a couple of guides on how to mitigate Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities in GNU/Linux and UNIX environments. It is always a good and I hope a standard practice to have your systems patched and if they aren’t for whatever the reason (that legacy thing […]
How to patch Spectre and Meltdown the ROM way
In a previous article I briefly, sort of, talked about the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. I have also written two guides to patch them from the OS side using a UNIX flavour from the BSD camp and a GNU/Linux distribution. Both actions resulted successful but there is a third way to patch this vulnerabilities. Regular […]
A brief introduction to SSL/TLS certificates
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and it an old implementation of a crytographic protocol. TLS, or Transport Layer Security, is a new one. They are both used to have privacy in the communications between different parties. They are used to secure email, web browsing, instant messaging, etc These protocols work in a complex way […]
How to install Fail2ban on FreeBSD
Fail2ban is a complementary tool to your firewall. It works by scanning log files and bans IPs which present suspicious activity such as failed logins. It is compatible with many UNIX-like systems and is a security tool to have in your arsenal. It can filter not only ssh logins, but other services too, for example […]
How to install ModSecurity 3 on FreeBSD
A couple of years ago I wrote a guide on how to install Modsecurity on FreeBSD. Now the program is on its third iteration so a new article is needed. Or so I think. In this article I’ll be covering Modsecurity 3 applied to protect Apache HTTP. If you find the articles in Adminbyaccident.com useful […]
How to mitigate/solve the MDS vulnerabilities of Intel processors in FreeBSD
It had to happen again. Anyone betting on new hardware vulnerabilities on Intel processors would have won. This time these are called the MDS vulnerabilities, which stands for Microarchitectural Data Sampling. The trouble is the ones who would have really made big money would have been those stating the new CPUs were on the same […]