The hosts.deny file is a file that Portsentry uses to keep track of ip
addresses of machines that have scanned your machine's ports and tried to
gain access to your machine.
if this file is empty it either means that portsentry hasn't detected
anyone scanning your machine, or that you haven't configured portsentry
and turned it on. which, is a bad thing. anyone running a linux box and
connecting to the internet that isn't running a modest 2 layer security
scheme is just asking for someone to break into their system and setup
shop. give them time....they will.
I would stronly suggest you install and configure PMfirewall and also
configure portsentry to begin watching your ports. may I also suggest
that you turn off any and all services that you have running that you're
not using. such as telnet, ftp, and a host of others. you can do this
simply and quickly my opening the file /etc/services and commenting out
the lines representing , (naming) those things that you aren't using.
doing so will close those ports and make your machine inaccessable on
those ports.
--
Mark
*****
"what knowledge I have managed to accumlate over the years
at times becomes obscured and even hidden amidst the vast
emotional onslaught of my children. You never finish being a parent. :)"
On Sat, 21 Apr 2001, ai4a wrote:
> Hi:
> I use my system as a simple desktop machine & connect to the internet
> through a ppp line & a 56K modem. Does this mean that I connect to the
> internet and no one needs to connect to me??
>
> In my hosts.deny file I have:
> ALL: ALL: DENY
>
> In my hosts.allow file I have nothing:
> # there are no entries in my hosts.allow file
>
> I can still connect to the internet and all works fine. Is my hosts.deny
> file working? Do I have a deamon turned off? How can I test if
> hosts.deny is working?
>
