Chapter 8. Securing Your System

System security maintenance is an essential task when running a computer, but it's never been particularly glamorous or fun. The basic goal of system security is to ensure that the system provides the services it is supposed to provide, cannot be subverted to do things it was not intended to do, and to ensure that the services remain available for use.

Effective security requires a multipronged approach, and Fedora provides effective tools to secure your system in several different ways:

Filtering of network traffic

System activity logging and automatic monitoring tools

Discretionary access controls such as permissions and access control lists

Mandatory access controls through SELinux

Intrusion-detection tools and immutable file attributes to detect and prevent file alteration

Tools to delegate specific system administration privileges to different users

Together with automated software updates, these tools enable you to efficiently maintain your system security.