Kevin Anderson wrote:
On Tuesday 31 August 2004 08:16, Andrew Graupe wrote:
For the last month or two, I have been especially paranoid about what
could happen to my computer, beyond all reason (I'm behind a firewall).
I made obsessive backups and such, but I still feel paranoid about the
following:
Windows XP SP2. I've turned autodownload off because I fear this will
break things, as it has been reported to do in certain circumstances.
Particularly if you have an Athlon 64.
I think my linux box might be 0wned, because it makes "processing
noises" in the middle of the night (might this be xscreensaver?).
I'd bet on a cronjob.
Sometimes I fear that Windows will corrupt itself, as it has been known
to do in the past.
A legitimate concern... The problem is windows though, so the fix is getting
rid of it.
Sometimes I fear that emerge --update world, or a kernel update, will
make me Gentoo system unbootable.
I can't imagine why. I've had a midnight cronjob updating my system nightly
for months, and there's never been a problem. Actually, In spite of what
people say, this process has been flawless for me, but I know someone running
SUSE, and the autoupdate DID screw his system up a bit... It deleted his
modules after replacing his kernel. A reboot fixed it by pointing to the new
modules once the new kernel was in use, but the point is, this isn't a really
legitimate concern, IMHO.
Sometimes I fear that either harddrive will die for no reason.
If this is going to be a serious problem, then mirror the drives. If not,
then don't worry about it.
Sometimes I fear that my Windows XP system disk will not boot.
To be honest, I've never heard of this unless some new software was installed.
Ah, well, when my Dell wouldn't boot, I thought the MBR was screwed (I
had just ran fdisk /mbr from a Win98 disk instead of fixmbr from the
windows XP disk). The recovery console was the only option, and it
wouldn't boot. The recovery console, which I installed locally after
booting with a grub bootdisk, doesn't start either, and I've tried
unplugging unnecessary hardware (other than PCI cards and other inside
components).
This has probably been exacerbated by my Windows system not booting up
do to some sort of Dell BIOS idosyncracy.
I hate to say it, this ISN'T a windows problem, nor is there much you can do
to prevent it.
What should I do? Have any of you had this happen to you? I have gone
so far as thinking I should set up my old computer with an ultra-stable
gentoo configuration, firewall it completely (hardware router+iptables),
make a new account for school on my fast box, and do weekly backups onto
CD, which could then be put onto the stable box.
You could do Rsyncs. There's minimal traffic, it's fast, and you don't need
the CDs. Sync from one box onto the other. If you REALLY want to be
paranoid, drop the network connection, and bring it up for the cronjob to do
the rsync, then drop the conection again.
Is this beyond the realm of being security-consious?
Perhaps a bit paranoid, but I don't think so. It's more of a corporate
mindset than a home user one, that's all... It certainly isn't bad.
Kev.
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