CHAPTER 5

Unix and Linux Security

Gerald BeucheltIndependent Security Consultant

When Unix was first booted on a PDP-8 computer at Bell Labs, it already had a basic notion of user isolation, separation of kernel and user memory space, and pro-cess security. It was originally conceived as a multiuser system, and as such, security could not be added on as an afterthought. In this respect, Unix was different from a whole class of computing machinery that had been targeted at single-user environments.

1. Unix and Security

The examples in this chapter refer to the Solaris operating system and Debian-based Linux distributions, a commercial and a community developed operating system.

Solaris is freely available in open source and binary distributions. ...

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