How Can You Screw up a Network?

Posted by Cliff on Friday November 11, 2005 @03:40PM from the learning-through-problem-solving dept.

aztektum asks: "Like a lot of Slashdot readers, I have setup my own home network. It isn't tricked out with all the fanciest hardware, but I do have a switch, BSD based firewall, I have configured e-mail (again on BSD), NFS and Samba, as well as remote access services like SSH and FTP. Now my line of work isn't networking or computer related at all. This is a personal hobby and a fairly new one for me (relatively speaking compared to others). I'm looking to learn more about managing problems with networks, but have no idea where to start. With such a small setup and only supporting two users (myself and a roommate) this isn't exactly enterprise level with enterprise level ups and downs. What are some ways I can screw up my network to troubleshoot problems and gain some insight? Also, what are some reference materials that you have found to be educational with relation to network administration?"

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guest account by dimss · 2005-11-11 22:06 · Score: 4, Interesting

Create SSH-accessible "guest" account on your router or server. Set password to "guest". They will come to your network within 24 hours. Make sure they can't do much with this account! Most probably they will try to download local exploits and other nasty tools.

I have created "guest" account on my Linksys router three days ago. Someone from Romania discovered this account next morning. They downloaded some binary files and tried to run them. Idiots! Binaries were for i386 but Linksys router is MIPS :)