To be or not to be free?

Tags:  security  Windows  Linux  Strato 

The operating system was the first thing I had to choose for my server. The choice was between Free/Open Source software (FOSS) and a proprietary system (Windows or Unix). Unix systems include Linux, BSD, Solaris, and a several proprietary Unices. Windows variants include servers based on NT, XP, and so on. If you are thinking of deploying a server, this is your first decision, too.My view is that one should choose the system one knows - or would like to know. Because making the most of the server is more important than the OS used, and skills and knowledge affect security and ease of use much more than the differences between the operating systems. And that's from someone who is both an MCP and a long time user of Windows, Linux and MacOS.Now, if you are a veteran of the operating system holy wars, you are probably at the boiling point by now, so let me elaborate. Yes, Windows and Unix are not the same. Under the hood are very different beasts. But as a user, I am more interested in what affects me, not in the way the software handles threads on a multicore processor. To me, Unix/Linux is a command line system with grapic user interfaces added on top, while Windows is a graphical system with command line utilities attached to it. Six of one, half dozen of the other. Traceroute versus Tracert.Proprietary systems cost money, but for that you get documentation and some hand holding and tech support. With open source you have community documentation and advice, so you are dependent on the kindness of strangers, some of whom have pretty rough edges. Bugs in FOSS are easier and faster to modify and repair. With proprietary systems you are dependent on the vendors, and your bug may be number 328 on the list. But you need to know how to code, or be lucky enough to find a responsive developer involved with the software in question (yes, it CAN happen).But the most important aspect of running a server is performance and security, and these depend more on the server administrator than on the OS. Securing and optimizing servers require learning the system in depth, applying updates and patches on a regular basis, modifying default configurations, removing and adding components, etc. It takes attention to details, constant vigilance and endless tweaking. You'd better like doing it in your OS, because you'll be doing it - or worrying about it - every day and every night.So by now you probably wonder which system I chose. Here is an assignment - find it out... The web site is www.words2u.net - use one of the tools that report the underlying OS, or read through the few pages that are already finished - the Tech details are there somewhere.

Zvi Grauer received his Ph.D. in chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 1985 to 2000, he has held product development positions in the chemical industry, and consulting positions improving product performance and marketability. In 2000 he joined Dialtone Internet, where he stayed as V... (Read full bio)

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Comment by Anonymous on Monday, February 11, 2008

I guess you chose Windows, because the web server is down at the moment.

Comment by Anonymous on Monday, February 11, 2008

The site is running, but there is a slight bandwidth issue at times... One of the problems of sharing with others.

Comment by Anonymous on Tuesday, February 12, 2008

John is an idiot, try making a comment to has value rather than this slash dot crap. I felt to blog was a fair assessment and was very impartial. He is in fact using Ubuntu and running Apache.

Comment by Anonymous on Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Your site is running Windows.

How do I know? Easy.
- you had to deny ping attempts to it - Windows can go down on it's knees and DoS a simple ping attack.
- even beeing behind a firewall, you didn't configured it well - there is one port open (not really a security flaw) but it's a SMB share port; except that you're dumbly running samba in your linux host or you're forwarding a SMB port to another machine in your network.

Another facts, not directly related to it:
- the home is made iso-8859-1 charset and the header matches iso-8859-1, difficult in today's linux systems that are all UTF8 and NO north american english speaker knows the difference between code sets and, I doubt, would configure an apache + linux server and generate the f***kin' western-european charset.
- your home page is too dawm non-interesting for a hacker, non-hacker people runs windows servers.

Be careful - your server can be attacked in a few moments after this.

Comment by Anonymous on Tuesday, February 12, 2008

I forgot to say:
The line ending is CR+LF. Are you using notepad for web development?

Comment by Anonymous on Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Is it "Apache/2.2.4 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.2.3-1ubuntu6.3 Server" ?

Comment by Anonymous on Tuesday, February 12, 2008

"With open source you have community documentation and advice, so you are dependent on the kindness of strangers, some of whom have pretty rough edges."

Then buy a support from one of open source company.

In a proprietary systems, if you don't pay they you end up dependent on the kindness of strangers, some of whom have pretty rough edges.

Comment by Anonymous on Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Nmap and Http: page headers show some info:

Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:21:48 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.4 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.2.3-1ubuntu6.3
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.3-1ubuntu6.3

Starting Nmap 4.53 ( http://insecure.org ) at 2008-02-13 01:38 EST
Interesting ports on 201.194.228.126:
Not shown: 1711 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
21/tcp open ftp
22/tcp open ssh
80/tcp open http

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 268.615 seconds

Comment by Anonymous on Tuesday, February 12, 2008

"With open source you have community documentation and advice, so you are dependent on the kindness of strangers, some of whom have pretty rough edges."

As another commenter pointed out this is not really true. When you buy Red Hat linux you are not dependent on community documents and strangers.

Comment by Anonymous on Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Ran a telnet session to port 80 and came up with the following:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<html><head>
<title>400 Bad Request</title>
</head><body>
<h1>Bad Request</h1>
<p>Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.<br />
</p>
<hr>
<address>Apache/2.2.4 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.2.3-1ubuntu6.3 Server at 127.0.1.1 Port 80</address>
</body></html>

So unless you've spoofed the banner information, it's Ubuntu/Apache.

Agreed, if you decide to go for a free (as in beer) solution, you'll be dependent on the kindness of strangers, rough or otherwise. That doesn't stop companies from purchasing support from official sources. For that matter, when was the last time you ever got anything like reasonable product support from Microsoft? And you pay a heck of a lot more for that than for a purchased copy of Linux...

Comment by Anonymous on Wednesday, February 13, 2008

"the Tech details are there somewhere."

Yeah right. Your site contains almost nothing at all, just a little text. Your blog link is a big empty space. "Technical" is not a live link.

Why are you wasting everyone's time? Your server connection is so slow I got bored, and now I could care less what you use.

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