Nuxified

FOSS technologies explained

  • Useful Articles
  • Blogs
  • Images
  • Tips
  • Archives

April 12, 2007

EnGarde Secure Linux – A quick review

With EnGarde Secure Linux Guardian Digital brings a Linux-distribution target at the use as a server which claims to be “secure by design”. Unlike most other distributions it contains SELinux by default which enhances Linux’s security-capabilities.

The free Community Edition can be downloaded on engardelinux.org. You have to register before the download in order get the an eMail with an activation-code.
On guardiandigital.com there’s also a commercial version of EnGarde Linux, called EnGarde Secure Linux Professional.
During my test I used the free community edition.

The installation is pretty straight forward, you set a few details and choose which kind of services (IDS, webserver, mail, database, …) will offer. According to your settings the packages will be selected and installed. Since no unnecessary software will be installed the finished system is pretty slim. My test-installation used less than 500MB.

After the installation and the following reboot a shell-login is not possible. EnGarde Linux has to be activated first in it’s web-interface. On activation you’ll also set the root-password, which enables you to login to the server, but usually this shouldn’t even be necessary since the configuration of the different services can be handled in the web-interface.
During my test this interface was pretty slow, but I guess this might be related to having EnGare Linux run in QEmu. I don’t think it’ll be that slow when you install it on a real machine.

Also package- and update-management can be done in the web-interface. There are a couple of additional packages available, but you won’t find X in that list. I don’t see this as a problem but wanted to mention it since some users still like having a GUI on the server.

The installed software mostly seems to be pretty new. The installed version, EnGarde Secure Linux Community Edition 3.0.13, comes with kernel 2.6.19, Apache 2.2.4, PHP 4.4.6 (PHP5 can be installed later via package-management), OpenSSH 4.5 and MySQL 5.0.33.
System-software like GlibC and GCC (which is not installed by default) comes in older versions (GlibC is 2.3.6 and GCC is 3.4.4). I guess the developers here prefer to have versions that are thoroughly tested and known to be stable. Though these packages are pretty old I am sure that all available security-patches have been applied.
The package-manager seems to be apt-get, which is suggested by the output during installation of new software in the web-interface. So it could be possible to add new repositories, though I’m not sure if it’s possible to find some with packages for EnGarde Linux.

Overall EnGarde Secure Linux leaves a good and solid impression.
The web-interface is really good to use and makes local or remote logins mostly unnecessary.
Only the forced registration in order to activate your installation is a little annoying, but totally bearable when you keep in mind that you get an easy to use and secure server-system for free.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Article by reptiler / Community Blogs

Learn Unix

I run Unix Tutorial website and help anyone interested to pick up Unix skills. If you have questions or just want to share your ideas – please join the Unix Tutorial on Facebook.

Tech Stack Solutions

Tech Stack Solutions is my company that provides Unix support. Sign up or simply get in touch to find out how I can help!

Search this Website

You May Also Like

Recent Posts

  • Advice on using SUDO
  • FFmpeg 4.0
  • KDE Plasma 5.9.0 Release
  • How to Install Ubuntu Linux without a DVD or USB
  • How to Securely Save All Your Passwords with Keepass
  • 9 Signs You Should Use Linux on Your Computer
  • The Easiest Way to Optimize Your MySQL Database Performance
  • Setting up a Linux Web Development Environment in Windows
  • Hunting Down Disk Space Hogs on Linux Command Line
  • 6 Simple Android Apps for Monitoring and Managing Your Linux Server

Archives

Categories

  • Community Blogs
  • Images and Screenshots
  • News
  • Technical Topics
  • Useful Articles

Basic Unix Commands

Basic Unix Commands
  • ls command
  • mkdir command
  • man command in unix
  • cd command - change directory
  • uname command

Advanced Unix Commands

Advanced Unix Commands
  • ln command - symlinks
  • tune2fs unix command - filesystem parameters
  • du command - disk usage
  • lsb_release command
  • find unix command

Unix Reference

Unix Reference
  • SSH port forwarding
  • unix commands
  • visudo tutorial
  • mtime unix
  • lrwxrwxrwx
  • Unix Tutorial digest

Unix Books

Unix Tutorials

Unix How-Tos
  • check raspbian version
  • autostart in KVM
  • List files in Ubuntu package
  • check CentOS version
  • create bootable USB in MacOS
  • Useful Articles
  • Blogs
  • Images
  • Tips
  • Archives

Copyright © 2021 · Education Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in