Re: Linux Maintenance

MaverickPT wrote:
My question is about maintaining Linux. I have automatic update enabled and have installed ClamAV and run a full system scan on a weekly basis.

ClamAV is a useful tool if you are running a mail server and you have microsoft user fetching mail from you, then you want to be kind to them and scan them mails so they won't get infected. Using ClamAV to scan your ubuntu is just waist of time and in many cases a load of false positives.

You want to use tools as chkrootkit and rkhunter, these detects rootkits properly.


Do I have to worry about Spyware

Not in the same way as in microsoft, you don't get those with official packages, of course if you download binaries from a shady website, then there are risk for spyware and backdoors, but I can say it's not that common.

Cookie spying works in all OS:es, but as most has browsers that are by default configured with better security in mind than MSIE, you really don't have to care so much about these, checking your cookies once in a while don't hurt.


etc and do I have to run a Chkdsk tool

fsck is run automatically if need be if you done an unclean unmount with older filesystems (ext2), but most filesystems uses journal and don't need to run fsck (except in really special cases, but you will notice when you need).


and defragmenter on the hard drive to keep things running smoothly.

The filesystems you should pick from, ext2/3, reiserfs, xfs, jfs has built in intelligence to see to minimize any fragmentation. There aren't any real need for do anything like this, after a couples of years usage I don't have 1% fragmentation on my hard drives (using a quite big LVM). Defragmentation tools usually are a risky thing to run, which can harm your file system, if you do use a such tool, ALWAYS make a backup of your whole system first.


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//Aho
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