[ale] Questions on Debian public server security

[bjorn at sccs.swarthmore.edu (Bjorn Dittmer-Roche)]

On Sat, 7 Feb 2004, Greg wrote:

> I am thinking of making Debian my OS of choice for public servers because I
> want to spend less time on upgrading and patching my public servers.  What
> do the security guru's of the list think about Debian vs. OpenBSD ???


I'm not a security guru, but experience with debian has shown that on the
rare occations that a security issue comes up, patches are available FAST
FAST FAST. (and, of course, they are insanely easy to install.) There are
a lot of debian developers who are extremely concerned about security and
work hard to keep things secure.

As for OpenBSD, I have no experience, but it's probably hard to beat an OS
specifically designed for security. For those who don't know, Open BSD
rightfully boasts: "Only one remote hole in the default install, in more
than 7 years!" It used to say 0 remote holes in default install in the
last 10 years, I think. Oh well.

	bjorn