Thanks Ben, for pointing out the -- often forgotten -- fact that "Nothing can protect you from your own stupidity." When configuring a server, we should always know and follow current "best practices" in all matters, including security. That goes regardless of the hardware base.
It's an unfortunate fact (for those of us who "just want to get it running") that "best practices" are a moving target, and it takes a lot of study/work/experience to learn what they are and keep up with them as they change. For example: What I said is true about PPC's being immune to a certain specific kind of attack (script kiddies with x86-machine-code based hacks) and that kind of attack is common enough to make PPC an attractive hardware base for a server. But that is only true today. As you say, if everybody took that advice, PPC would become the dominant hardware platform, and the one all the script writers would be attacking. (8-> I think it would be wonderful to have my favorite hardware suddenly become very popular, but I'm not going to hold my breath! <-8) Clearly, there's no free lunch, and you're much better off in the long run making sure (by hard work and study of the relevant books and documentation) that the hackers, regardless of type, can't get to your machine in the first place! That's why experienced system administrators get paid well for what they do. If you want an excellent book on the subject of sys-admin best practices, take a look at the "Linux Administration Handbook" by Nemath, Snyder, and Hein, published by Prentice-Hall. Over 800 pages of good advice from experts in the field. All of that said, good automated tools that embody current bast practices are a boon to the community. I don't know anything about webmin or any of the other gui administration tools -- I've been in the business for 25 years and I'm comfortable with command-line interfaces -- but I can see the need. Maybe, after I retire, I'll write one. Rick
