Hi all: I finally got a job working in the networking department and I am really learning a lot. Last year I took the first two exams for the MCSE and now I am very interested in learning Linux as I feel (as a newbie in networking) that I could learn a whole lot more. I am looking to install SuSE on my machine with a 2GB hd with W2K. I am just wondering (after reading all these E-mails about stuff I^ve never heard of) what I should look out for, what benefits I could benefit from and basically as a newbie where I should begin. Could anyone guide me in the right direction. Installation shouldn't be a problem (I have done many in the past) but what should I really be asking myself when I set up a system? I have 2 comps at home and will network both and want to be sure I have good security. Thanks, as a Newbie this newsgroupd is pretty interesting. Carmen
On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 11:57:00AM +0200, kalmeida@amnesty.ch wrote:
I finally got a job working in the networking department and I am really learning a lot. Last year I took the first two exams for the MCSE and now I am very interested in learning Linux as I feel (as a newbie in networking) that I could learn a whole lot more.
I am looking to install SuSE on my machine with a 2GB hd with W2K. I am just wondering (after reading all these E-mails about stuff I^ve never heard of) what I should look out for, what benefits I could benefit from and basically as a newbie where I should begin.
Could anyone guide me in the right direction. Installation shouldn't be a problem (I have done many in the past) but what should I really be asking myself when I set up a system? I have 2 comps at home and will network both and want to be sure I have good security.
If you are connecting a home network to the internet, and are a beginner, I can thoroughly recommend using a separate firewall machine with a dedicated firewall distribution (www.ipcop.org, for example). The machine doesn't need to be high spec (a junk 486 thrown away by someone would be good enough). You can do the same sort of thing with a standard Linux machine, but a separate machine is much less hassle, and you don't have the continual worry of "did I miss something off that opens a huge security hole". As for where to start with Linux, I have two "words": 1. RTFM. Read the HOWTOs and package documentation in /usr/share/doc. In particular, read the NET-x-HOWTO (not sure of the number nowadays). Manuals on commands can be obtained with 'man <command>'. Other useful documentation can be obtained from www.linuxdoc.org (possibly renamed to www.tldp.org recently), and other web sources. O'Reilly do a "Linux Networking Guide" or something similar if you're in to dead tree documentation. 2. Play. Don't be afraid to play around with things; try them out, see what you can do, and have some fun. You're unlikely to break anything, but if you do, fixing it is part of the learning experience. -- David Smith Work Email: Dave.Smith@st.com STMicroelectronics Home Email: David.Smith@ds-electronics.co.uk Bristol, England
Alle 11:57, martedì 9 luglio 2002, Karen Almeida ha scritto:
Hi all:
I finally got a job working in the networking department and I am really learning a lot. Last year I took the first two exams for the MCSE and now I am very interested in learning Linux as I feel (as a newbie in networking) that I could learn a whole lot more.
Well you could learn how to set up a firewall like iptables, NIS, NFS, Samba, SMTP, POP3, FTP, HTTP, and so on (follows an almost long list). You could do this for windows but afaik you would have to pay too much.
I am looking to install SuSE on my machine with a 2GB hd with W2K. I am just wondering (after reading all these E-mails about stuff I^ve never heard of) what I should look out for, what benefits I could benefit from and basically as a newbie where I should begin.
Could anyone guide me in the right direction. Installation shouldn't be a problem (I have done many in the past) but what should I really be asking myself when I set up a system? I have 2 comps at home and will network both and want to be sure I have good security.
Well... I would ask myself that that PC is good for what I want to do with it. What else? If your target is to learn, try to set up first what you want to learn first. You only have to choose. For example, if you live in a Windows network, you might find interesting samba. If your Linux box is a firewall/router, you would need to set up iptables (or SuSEfirewall2) and maybe you could learn a lot about QoS (see the HOWTO on advanced routing). About security, you may want to close every port you do not need. Check in Yast2 (inetd) and what services you are running by default. THen you have a good security, Praise
Thanks, as a Newbie this newsgroupd is pretty interesting. Carmen
participants (3)
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Dave Smith -
Karen Almeida -
Praise