What to do after a fresh Linux install in a production server?

Posted by Rhyuk on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Rhyuk
Published on 2012-07-09T19:09:55Z Indexed on 2012/07/09 21:17 UTC
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linux

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security

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redhat

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administration

I havent had previous experience with the 'serious' IT scene. At work I've been handed a server that will host an application and MYSQL (I will install and configure everything), this will be a productive server. Soon I will be installing RHEL5 to it but I would like to know like, if you get a new production server, what would be the first 5 things you would do after you do a fresh Linux install? (configuration/security/reliability wise)

EDIT: Added more information regarding the server enviroment and server roles:

-The server will be inside my company's intranet/firewall.

-The server will receive files (GBs) in binary code from another internal server. The application installed in this server is in charge of "translating" all that binary into human readable input. Server will get queried to get this information.

-Only 2-3(max) users will be logging in.

-(2) 145GB HDs in RAID1 for the OS and (2) 600GB HDs in RAID1 also for data.

I mean, I know I may not get the perfect guideline. But at least something thats better than leaving everything on default.

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