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Desktop Linux Sliding in Under the Radar?
Paul Johnson asks: "This article at ComputerWorld describes a sysadmin's discovery that many people in his company are installing Linux on their desktops without consulting IT. The writer is concerned with the security implications, but there is a wider issue. At present the 'official' penetration of Linux into the desktop market is something around 1%. The writer of this article doesn't give figures, but it sounds like he may have stumbled on several times that percentage of desktop Linux installations. If so then this is an important trend. Linux got its foot in the datacentre door in exactly the same way a few years ago, with unofficial installations doing odd server jobs.
If you are a sysadmin, in an organization that runs Windows on the desktop, have you stumbled on many unofficial Linux installations?"
but rather a network guy but I have 3 Linux boxen that MIS does not know about and the dept laptop is booted with a Knoppix CD about %90 of the time.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
I can see how security might be lax. When I was new to Linux I enabled everything whether I needed it or not. I figured I'd get around to playing with bind, sendmail and ftpd sooner or later. Everyone I know who's tried Linux has only dipped his toe in, so to speak.
Now I know more and have played enough that I disable everything except what I need, make sure it's secure and then put up a firewall just to be sure. But heck, just the other day I realized I hadn't apt-get update'd and apt-get upgrade'd in a couple of months. Oops. I also had weak passwords until about a month ago.
I'm in a non-tech company, and the Linux penetration is well below 1%. Only one desktop--a dual-boot laptop--as far as I know (except when I boot up KNOPPIX), but I have three rouge servers of my own. (Squid, Nessus, nmap and Snort are my friends.)
I also have two Cygwin installs, but they're my workstations, not user PCs. Anyone seeing those on desktops yet?
In this article the guy chose RedHat. If you don't care for commercial support, why would you choose RedHat over Debian or Slackware? Especially if security is a concern.
Well one advantage I can think of is: no need to worry about applying MS security patches to those 60 machines.. just one central server to fix, and to break itself every few hours.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
I got about 4 or 5 of the Unx admins and a good number of the DBS'a doing this too.
In small shops - we had 6 Linux desktops running at the Multi-Media Developer I worked at in '94. XFree on ATI Mach32, anyone?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Very true. It's the coolest thing. Get yourself a $50 keychain drive and make it your persistent storage.
Then, no matter where you go, any machine you can get your hands on your machine.
Textbooks and Open Educational Resources
how can it be spy-ware when IT IS THEIR BOXEN ? The one thing in our enterprise that MUST be present to access ANY shared resource is the Tivoli agent with the config checksum matching, much with it and you don't get anything from the network. Don't get me wrong I hate the crap too but it IS a place of employment....
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
The point is, a sysadmin can patch and update winders machines remotely and en masse. If he doesn't know about the linux machine, then he obviously has a hole in his security plan.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Unfortuantely a lot of management/business types really DON'T understand sunk cost.
You should buy something you want to use.
Using something simply because you bought it is moronic.
The waste happens on the purchasing side, not the usage side.
This is not a 'geek' view, this is a good economist/businessperson's view, and for anyone who disagrees with it, here is a good example.
You're stuck on a desert island. You knew you would be stuck here. TO prepare for being stuck here, you bought some cyanide-based glue (i.e. superglue). Your major problem is that there is no food on the island. Do you
1) Eat the cyanide-based glue
2) Don't eat the cyanide-based glue
The "Well, it would be going to waste if I don't eat it" argument obviously doesn't work here. If you don't get the right tool for the job, you shouldn't be forced to use it-- The damage is already done, no need to exacerbate it.