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Εγώ λέω να κάνεις ένα σέρβερ γνωριμίας με Password για τα παιδιά εδώ, να δοκιμάσουν το παιχνίδι αυτήν την Πέμπτη. Ας αφήσουμε τις ακρότητες για μετά 😁 Αντε @andreκαι @spyderπροτείνω να το αγοράσετε αν δεν το χετε κάνει ακόμα και φυσικά όποιος άλλος θέλει πιστεύω είναι καλοδεχουμενος από τον admin @mad_dog.. ΥΓ. Προτείνεται ανεπιφύλακτα και δια ροπάλου η χρήση VR η εμπειρία γίνεται εκ των ουκ άνευ και δια παντός.

Λοιπόν μπήκα και δοκίμασα να τρέξω με σλικ στη βροχή στο kyalami. Είναι μία εμπειρία που πρέπει να δοκιμάσετε. Ο αγώνας ξεκίνησε με ηλιοφάνεια και στον πρώτο γύρο έριξε βροχούλα, έχει μία προειδοποίηση οπου ο μηχανικός σου προτείνει να βάλεις wet. Μπαίνεις στα πιτς, πας με τα βελάκια πριν σταματήσεις και επιλέγεις wet αλλιώς σου ξαναβάζουν Dry. Αν συνεχίσεις με Dry μετά από δύο τρεις γύρους το αυτοκίνητο αρχίζει να σπινάρει σε κάθε πάτημα του γκαζιού και να χάνει την πρόσφυση του πολύ εύκολα στις στροφές. Εσύ Φιλοθεε που έχεις Direct Drive θα το νιώσεις πάρα πολύ έντονα Άρα στο ξεκίνημα αν έχεις δώσει βροχή ξεκινά κατευθείαν με βρόχινα λάστιχα αυτό Ίσως ρυθμίζεται από τον admin. @mad_dog νομίζω πως πρέπει να το κοιτάξεις. Επίσης πρέπει να δούμε αν μπορείς να αλλάξεις και το υπόλοιπο setup πριν τον αγώνα.

Δοκιμές SERVER στο Assetto Corsa Competizione Όνομα: MADDOG Server Πιθανές ρυθμίσεις στην περίπτωση που δεν τον βλέπετε κάνετε τα εξής: Στο multiplayer πηγαίνετε στο Advanced options. Εκεί στις ρυθμίσεις αλλάζετε τα εξής: 1. Server Activity 0 2. Latency 100 Μετά στο search δίνετε: MADD και αν τα έχετε κάνει όλα σωστά πρέπει να βλέπετε τον server.

Είσαι τρελός με το g27 τί να καταλάβουμε? Εγώ είχα χαζέψει τόσο πολύ με το θέαμα της βροχής μέσα από το vr που κόντεψα να ξεχάσω πως τρέχαμε αγώνα . Πιστεύω πως τα υπόλοιπα (τιμόνια πεντάλ κλπ )υπολείπονται της εμπειρίας ενός VR κατά πολύ , η οθόνη μου φαίνεται τόσο απεχθής που πολλές φορές αναρωτιέμαι τι να ζητάει αυτό το άχρηστο πράγμα εκεί μπροστά μου . Ξέφυγα πάλι ......

Εδώ δεν μπορεί να επιλέξει με τι αυτοκίνητο θα τρέξει κι εσύ θέλεις να επιλέξει ολόκληρο παιχνίδι;; 😜

Mπήκα σε έναν server Kyalami... 1.44.680 με 80lt, χρόνος από αγώνα...δηλαδή τι αγώνας, sprint ήταν 40min... Δεν ξέρω τι γίνεται στα άλλα τιμόνια, στο δικό μου τιμόνι το FFB είναι πολύ καλό. Aν με ρωτούσε κανείς με τι θα έτρεχα GT3, μπορεί να έλεγα ACC...

Κάτι μου θυμίζουν αυτά. @mad_dog Θέλω πλήρη αποτελέσματα. Έλα μη ντρέπεσαι, κανε σωστή παρουσίαση. @panosdimip Και τι έγινε τελικά. τρέξατε με σλικ στη βροχή;

INTRODUCING THE GT PRO & CHALLENGER SERIES 2020 https://www.studio-397.com/rfactor2-gt-series-2020/

Θα παρουσιάσω μερικά πολύ γνωστά αγωνιστικά για Hillclimb...ξεκινώ με το αγαπημένο μου Lancia S4 (Group B) H ανάβαση είναι η Wolsfeld. Εδώ μπορείτε να δείτε ένα πέρασμά μου όταν έτρεχα στο RBR.

Εμπιστευόμαστε @John@John Τέλος

ΣΙγα ρε μην καψεις καμια φλαντζα,μας γεμισες σκονες,μην κανεις και εσυ σαν μερικους που νομιζουν οτι κανουν τον παρουσιαστη στο Greece Big Brother και τους βλεπoυν 5 ατομα,,,δεν ειπαμε οτι δεν ισχυει , κοντος ψαλμος αλληλουια !! 17 Απριλιου που ξεκιναει το ευρωπαικο πρωταθλημα αναβασεων θα λυθουν ολα με τον νεο κανονισμο. Εμεις παλι σαν οι πλεον αναγνωρισμενοι global , eSports European hillclimb championship για τη νεα σεζον 2020 θα προσπαθησουμε να ειμαστε οσο μπορουμε κοντα στις νεες απαιτησεις,

Build 1117 and Content Weekly Updates As part of our recent promise to put out updates more quickly, here’s another one! This week we have a handful of updates to both the new UI as well as graphics and physics content updates. But before we dive into these updates, we have some exciting news to share. We have a brand new member in the Studio 397 crew. Well known for being the “World’s Fastest Gamer” and now moving on to real world motorsports, you guessed it, it’s Rudy van Buren! Rudy will be sharing his insight and expertise, not to mention real world knowledge in motorsports and professional simulators, to help further raise the bar and continue improving the core physics in rFactor 2. His know-how and driving ability will add a new dimension to our ongoing commitment to realism and simulation! McLaren Open Wheelers This week we have a few car updates, starting with the three vintage McLaren open wheelers: the MP4/8, the MP4/13 and the M23. All three get an update to the new materials! Check them all out here if you haven’t subscribed yet. We hope to see your new skin creations! Don’t forget to grab the updated templates in your ‘rFactor 2’ install in the ‘Templates’ folder. Mclaren MP4/13 1998 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/1515650133 Mclaren MP4/8 1993 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1515644900 McLaren M23 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/1515642353 Physics Still on cars but on to physics improvements, where Rudy and the physics team have already been working hard to help iron out some of the outstanding issues. This week the focus was on the reported “bounciness” of the BMW M2 coming off curbs. These improvements were made in a few areas – we started with optimizing stiffness for the updated tyres. That allowed us to also improve dampers’ characteristics, making the car more stable and with better response over kerbs, as well as the ‘stick-slip’ effects coming from tyres, when sliding. Along the way, we also made improvements to differential response on power and coast, so it’s now a better match to the dynamics of the car and at the same time, more closely follows the updated data we got from BMW. BMW M2 CS Racing v1.39 Slightly softer steering links to reduce vibration Slightly lower center of gravity to match the data Tweaked differential locks and preload (higher) New default front camber set to -3.0 deg Readjusted dampers Reduced the bounciness over curbs Fixed opponent classes filtering. Each class can now be run separately, single player and multiplayer. Porsche 991 GT3 Cup v1.31 Fixed opponent classes filtering. Each class can now be run separately, single player and multiplayer. Nürburgring Nordschleife (2018) v1.51 Adjusted fog and haze settings for more visibility. Broadcast Overlays https://www.studio-397.com/2020/02/build-1117-update-and-new-ui-improvements-2/In other news, this past couple of weeks we have also been hard at work on revamping the broadcast overlays. Hopefully we will have something to share real soon. More on that next week! Changelog New UI Public Beta Fixed micro stutters in the new UI, that were more prominent in VR. Added network settings in the UI options. Fixed a memory leak while in tuning/showroom Known Issues Showroom does not go full screen when pressing ‘return’. After content install in VR rFactor 2 does not restart. A workaround for now is to restart manually. There is still a black band on the bottom half of the track loading screen. Unrelated to UI, but we are also aware of the erratic throttle behavior of the AI cars, and we are looking into that. Parc Ferme is not working in the new UI. Work in Progress Add skin download progress bar while on a server that allows custom skin transfers. Config tool sporadically fails to launch up after clicking PLAY for setting graphics resolution, VR or post effect levels. Team creation in the showroom is missing. Material editing in the showroom is missing. Forced setup and/or upgrades. Car (re)selection when on a server. Resume from replay. Sporadic ‘white screen’ when leaving an online session.

Tην Πέμπτη 20.02.2020 ώρα Ελλάδας 21:00 ξεκινά το practice. Practice: 60min Quali: 15min Race: 45min Όνομα: MADDOG Server

Hello everyone, dev from Hypnotic Ants Studio here. I’d like to tell you a bit about our newest puzzle-adventure game launching on February 20th 2020 - DREAMO. In a nutshell, the game’s main mechanic takes a different spin on the concept of the Rubik’s cube. The Artifacts featured in DREAMO are solved by placing cogs on rollers so that the power charge will reach from the starting to the ending point. Sounds easy enough? What if you had to keep gravity, rotation, the opposite wall, and other factors in mind? We’re really happy about the puzzle design, the Artifacts will quite literally grind your gears. You can see one of the more advanced designs here: https://imgur.com/gallery/K6We69R Of course that’s not enough for a full-fledged game, so good news for those interested in mystery stories. DREAMO’s fully voiced 3-chapter story mode takes you to your character’s coma dream, where not everything you see makes sense, but your goal is clear - progress through Artifacts, regain your memories, and wake up. While physically you’re alone in your dream world, dr Tara Moreau watches over your real body somewhere in a lab. By means of latest technological advancements, she connects to your brain and acts as a guide, often commenting on strange things and occurrences you see while exploring. I don’t want to spoil everything, so if you like colorful and relaxing puzzle games, feel free to check out DREAMO’s free demo version on Steam and add the game to your wishlist: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1137330/DREAMO/ If you have any questions about the game, I’ll do my best to respond in this thread you can also find us on social media (links available on Steam page).

Μια από τα ίδια

ACC Changelog v1.3.1: - Logging re-enabled. - First and full name now displayed in driver swap widget. - Fixed formation widget sticking when switching from a MP session to a SP one. - 50 slots for private MP at Kyalami. - Fixed scripted rolling start positions with random client disconnections. - More permissive threshold on lateral positions during scripted formation. - Penalties now clear on session restart. - Admin command added to clear all penalties ("clear_all"). - Updated BMW M6 GT3 Mount Panorama aggressive setup. - Updated Bathurst-spec Bentley M-Sport liveries. ACC Changelog v1.3 General: Enabled Intercontinental GT Challenge Pack DLC (requires additional purchase). Adding 4 new tracks, a lot of new entries and relevant season and game modes: Mount Panorama Circuit WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca Suzuka Circuit Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit Added IGTC 2019 entries and liveries. Added IGTC 2019 championship mode. Added IGTC race weekend modes (8H, 9H, 10H and 12H race weekend). Fix to occasional freezes with Fanatec wheels caused by having the Fanatec LED option enabled without using Fanatec hardware. Shared memory unmapping when quitting the game. Gameplay: Fix for incorrect driver stint limits in Custom Race Weekend mode. Fixed checkered flags seen as real flags in final race sector. Fixed drive-through penalty for exceeding driver stint and added S&G penalty in case of double violation. Pitlane logic moved from trigger to surface system for more reliable detection. Fixed replay driver info memory occupation. Better recognition of non-overtake highlights during incidents. Collision enabler has been changed to the overlap-based system. Collisions are enabled by mesh and no longer based on distance – fixes rare occasions when cars spawned too close to one another and continued to have no collision after the green light. New spawn system and track slots sorting: Grid and fast start spawns are built at runtime, pitlane slots are sorted by spline. Reduced yellow flag threshold for offtrack cars. Added replay event type dependency in gallery replays (replay version changed). Reviewed formation lap and start triggers. Fixed issue with destructible objects in gallery replays. UI/HUD: UI integration for DLC. Fixed MFD pitstop validity with pit window rules to be green already while on the track. Pitstop is now shown valid in the MFD before entering pitlane when all conditions are met. Navigation: restored damage MFD selection logic to correct one. MP and Championship car selection boxes now point to the new showroom. Appearance update to normal/high/max priority race communication messages. Added more highlighted player-specific communication messages. Communication panel positioning and minimum message priority exposed as options in the HUD options screen. The previously used center position can be restored via the HUD options. Added engine map setting display to the clutch bar in the gear widget. General styling updates to the gear widget. MFD tyre set condition indicator added in the pit strategy page of the MFD. Brand new sets are marked white, used sets are marked with a black dot for easier selection on the fly. MFD pit strategy now shows both fuel to add and total fuel calculation. HUD and real-time widget now use official position from race start to the first split to show more reliable positions at the start and less flickering. “Randomize” button is now part of the Custom weather group. Fixed camera cycle inconsistency in replay when the car is in the pits (difference in cycle up vs. down). Weather forecast widget sensitivity increased. Added green lights widget with the setting to be disabled via HUD options. Real-time page update in the MFD to account for lapped cars and large gaps that are not relevant for the player. Extra highlighting for the player row in the real-time position widget for easier tracking. Graphics: Fixed near plane with F7 free camera (now depends on camera distance from the focused car). Alternative rendering method for marbles. NOTE: works only when material quality is set to MID (should help when using FXAA). Additional custom templates for the Porsche 991II GT3 Cup and Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo cars. Improved car visibility system when max opponent visibility setting is used. Cars in pitlane should now be ignored when on track to not steal focus for cars driving in front. Cars in front also have render priority over cars behind the player. Disabled behind-player-car light cone optimization for opponent cars in chase-cam and dashpro views to fix an unwanted pop-in effect. 3D grass updates on all tracks. Unique display brightness curves for individual tracks. Fixed national flags going hectic during the pause menu. Updated season-independent numberplate/banner layouts for custom cars and custom game modes in all seasons. Fix for issue with car decals when car visibility limit is used. Physics: All cars BOP assignments for IGTC circuits. All cars have now safe, aggressive and wet presets for new IGTC circuits. Audi R8 LMS EVO new Spa aggressive preset. Bentley 2018 new Spa aggressive setup. Honda NSX GT3 (old) new Silverstone aggressive preset. Honda NSX GT3 EVO rev limiter tweaks. Lexus RC F GT3 all presets modified brake balance. Slipstream optimization in CPU performance with many AI cars. Chassis flex optimization in CPU performance with many AI cars. Slipstream simulation fine-tuning. Leading car now gains less speed, while the following car gains more. Tyre model fine-tuning. Pressure sensitivity and influence on flex and slip angle/ratio. Wet tyre wear and grip adjustments. Slick tyres now drain less water on a wet track. Porsche 991II GT3-R performance tweaks on sprint circuits. Optimizations to AI CPU occupancy. Fixed brake wear after loading a saved game. Fixed occasional bug with broken suspensions when pitting after loading a saved game. Fix for MoTeC not saving if the username had special characters. MoTeC now exports in 200hz frequency for suspension travel, wheel speed, dampers, and relative math channels. MoTeC new channels export on/off when suspension travel touches bumpstops. Improved engine response at low revs and manual clutch release scenarios for easier starts. It also improves driveability for “starting over grass after a spin” scenario. Less sensitive launch control activation. Now needs almost 100% accelerator to engage. Improves slow launches with clutch without engaging always. Audio: Improved “Green flag” message timing at the race start. New crew chief/spotter messages. Multiplayer: All tracks in base content now have 50 slots for private MP. Server formation trigger is set 500m earlier when full-lap formation is used. Cars are now always positioned in 45 degrees in FP and Q sessions. Player car is now locked until green flag + 20 seconds when teleported from the grid or formation lap. Added IGTC tracks to server configuration: kyalami_2019, mount_panorama_2019, suzuka_2019, laguna_seca_2019. NOTE: non-DLC owners can also set up servers with DLC tracks. Formation lap type is now configurable via settings.json: New system (default), old system (with limiter), free (for private servers) New Formation lap type for Multiplayer, including position tracking widget – to be used in official and CP servers and optional in private MP servers. Guidelines: – In “Single file” phase, player must follow the target widget, it should be relaxed enough to allow for warming up tyres and brakes. – Being out of target by significant margins results in teleport to pits. – In “Double file” phase, players should find their target position as soon as possible and hold speed and side once there. – In the “Pre-green” phase (when the speed delta appears), players must lock their speed to the delta. – Speeding or moving out of lateral and longitudinal position during the pre-green phase grants a penalty based on severity. – The system works on a protect-the-innocent basis, the player can ignore what other cars are doing around them, the important thing to pay attention to is their own position and speed. – Collisions are disabled during the formation lap and regained once any overlap is ended. New dynamic fast formation spawns for MP. Server and client penalties now correctly accumulate. Server post-race time penalties are now applied on top of mid-race penalties. Pitlane speeding in non-race sessions no longer disqualifies the player, only teleports the client back to the pits. Fixed missing lap countdown for Race Control penalties. Temporarily disabled server settings: “isRaceLocked” (active by default) and event rules “driverStintTimeSec” and “maxTotalDrivingTime”. Updated server admin handbook to provisional version 6a. Ratings: Added new track medals for DLC owners. TR rating now scales dependent on DLC ownership. SA Trust generation adjustments. CP servers will run DLC tracks in a parallel schedule. CP servers will adaptively select DLC tracks on unknown track days when a large majority of registrations owns the DLC.

Είπα να κατέβω από το αμάξι να κάνω ένα τσιγάρο να τη θαυμάσω απ έξω .

New DLC Φροντίστε αυτοί που θα τρέξουμε μαζί Πέμπτη να το έχετε κατεβάσει ήδη !

INTERCONTINENTAL GT PACK ARRIVING ON FEBRUARY 4TH Kyalami, Laguna Seca, Suzuka and Bathurst

Τρισάθλιο σαλιγκάρι γιατί δεν εβαλες την άλλη που τερμάτισα εγώ πρώτος? Περιμένω θύματα να δείξω γραμμές!!! Har har har Gesendet von meinem SM-N950F mit Tapatalk

9:15 θα μαι εκεί. Παραθέτω κ μια φωτογραφία από την Κυριακή έτσι για να πεισμωσεις. Γιατί όπως θα θυμάσαι είμαι ο βασιλιάς της Ζολντερ, εσύ μόνο για Τομπαν είσαι χαρ χαρ.

Στις 30.01.2020 θα υπάρχει server με τις εξής ρυθμίσεις: 1. practice 15min 2. Quali 15min 3. Race 15 min Temp: 18°C Safety 40 Όνομα: MADDOG Server Ωρα εκκίνησης 21:00 Eλλάδας Θα γίνουν 2 αγώνες Θέσεις server 12 άτομα

ΜΠΡΑΒΟ ΡΕ @mad_dog μου έφτιαξες το Σαββατοκύριακο . Υπέροχο παιχνίδι ,υπέροχος σέρβερ ,υπέροχη πίστα και αυτό το safe rate του παιχνιδιού σώζει ζωές . Επιτέλους καθαροί αγώνες χωρίς στουκαρίσματα . Το παιχνίδι με το rift s είναι μια τελείως διαφορετική εμπειρία που δεν περιγράφεται με λόγια. Που είσαι team mate @rapid_fast να λιώσουμε . Μιλάμε για ΕΞΑΡΤΗΣΗ ,ΕΘΙΣΜΟ,ΝΑΡΚΩΤΙΚΑ .... @spyder@andre αν δεν το έχετε ήδη αγοράσει (rift s) να το κάνετε με την πρώτη ευκαιρία ,αξίζει περισσότερο απ΄ό,τι έχω αγοράσει για τον ψηφιακό μου κόσμο από το 1988 που ασχολούμαι .

Μίλησε κανείς ?

Ξεκίνησαν οι προ παραγγελίες! Στην Αμερική έχει $399, ενώ στην Ευρώπη €499. Στην Ελλάδα ακόμα ΔΕΝ... https://www.oculus.com/rift-s/

The firewall protects everything "behind" it from everything in "front" of it. Usually the "front" of the firewall is its Internet facing side, and the "behind" is the internal network. The way firewalls are designed to suit different types of networks is called the firewall topology. Here is a link to detailed explanation of different firewall topologies: http://www.firewall.cx/firewall_topologies.php You can also get devices known as personal firewalls, such as Zonealarm (http://www.zonelabs.com), Sygate Personal Firewall (http://www.sygate.com) and Tiny Personal Firewall (http://www.tinysoftware.com). These are packages meant for individual desktops and are fairly easy to use. The first thing they do is make the machine invisible to pings and other network probes. Most of them also let you choose what programs are allowed to access the Internet. Therefore, you can allow your browser and mail client, but if you see some suspicious program trying to access the network, you can disallow it. This is a form of egress filtering or outbound traffic filtering and provides very good protection against Trojan horse programs and worms. However, firewalls are no cure-all solution to network security woes. A firewall is only as good as its rule set, and there are many ways an attacker can find common misconfigurations and errors in the rules. For example, if the firewall blocks all traffic except traffic originating from port 53 (DNS) so that everyone can resolve names, the attacker could then use this rule to his advantage. By changing the source port of his attack or scan to port 53, the firewall will allow all of his traffic through, because it assumes it is DNS traffic. Bypassing firewalls is a whole study in itself and one which is very interesting (especially to those with a passion for networking), because it normally involves misusing the way TCP and IP are supposed to work. That said, firewalls today are becoming very sophisticated and a well-installed firewall can severely thwart a would-be attacker's plans. It is important to remember that the firewall does not look into the data section of the packet. Thus, if you have a Web server that is vulnerable to a CGI exploit and the firewall is set to allow traffic to it, there is no way the firewall can stop an attacker from attacking the Web server. It does not look at the data inside the packet. That would be the job of an intrusion-detection system (covered in part three).

7 Security Measures to Protect Your Servers Introduction When setting up infrastructure, getting your applications up and running will often be your primary concern. However, making your applications to function correctly without addressing the security needs of your infrastructure could have devastating consequences down the line. In this guide, we will talk about some basic security practices that are best to configure before or as you set up your applications. SSH Keys SSH keys are a pair of cryptographic keys that can be used to authenticate to an SSH server as an alternative to password-based logins. A private and public key pair are created prior to authentication. The private key is kept secret and secure by the user, while the public key can be shared with anyone. To configure the SSH key authentication, you must place the user's public key on the server in a special directory. When the user connects to the server, the server will ask for proof that the client has the associated private key. The SSH client will use the private key to respond in a way that proves ownership of the private key. The server will then let the client connect without a password. To learn more about how SSH keys work, check out our article here. How Do They Enhance Security? With SSH, any kind of authentication, including password authentication, is completely encrypted. However, when password-based logins are allowed, malicious users can repeatedly attempt to access the server. With modern computing power, it is possible to gain entry to a server by automating these attempts and trying combination after combination until the right password is found. Setting up SSH key authentication allows you to disable password-based authentication. SSH keys generally have many more bits of data than a password, meaning that there are significantly more possible combinations that an attacker would have to run through. Many SSH key algorithms are considered uncrackable by modern computing hardware simply because they would require too much time to run through possible matches. How Difficult Is This to Implement? SSH keys are very easy to set up and are the recommended way to log into any Linux or Unix server environment remotely. A pair of SSH keys can be generated on your machine and you can transfer the public key to your servers within a few minutes. To learn about how to set up keys, follow this guide. If you still feel that you need password authentication, consider implementing a solution like fail2ban on your servers to limit password guesses. Firewalls A firewall is a piece of software (or hardware) that controls what services are exposed to the network. This means blocking or restricting access to every port except for those that should be publicly available. On a typical server, a number services may be running by default. These can be categorized into the following groups: Public services that can be accesses by anyone on the internet, often anonymously. A good example of this is a web server that might allow access to your site. Private services that should only be accessed by a select group of authorized accounts or from certain locations. An example of this may be a database control panel. Internal services that should be accessible only from within the server itself, without exposing the service to the outside world. For example, this may be a database that only accepts local connections. Firewalls can ensure that access to your software is restricted according to the categories above. Public services can be left open and available to everyone and private services can be restricted based on different criteria. Internal services can be made completely inaccessible to the outside world. For ports that are not being used, access is blocked entirely in most configurations. How Do They Enhance Security? Firewalls are an essential part of any server configuration. Even if your services themselves implement security features or are restricted to the interfaces you'd like them to run on, a firewall serves as an extra layer of protection. A properly configured firewall will restrict access to everything except the specific services you need to remain open. Exposing only a few pieces of software reduces the attack surface of your server, limiting the components that are vulnerable to exploitation. How Difficult Is This to Implement? There are many firewalls available for Linux systems, some of which have a steeper learning curve than others. In general though, setting up the firewall should only take a few minutes and will only need to happen during your server's initial setup or when you make changes in what services are offered on your computer. A simple choice is the UFW firewall. Other options are to use iptables or the CSF firewall. VPNs and Private Networking Private networks are networks that are only available to certain servers or users. For instance, in DigitalOcean, private networking is available in some regions as a data-center wide network. A VPN, or virtual private network, is a way to create secure connections between remote computers and present the connection as if it were a local private network. This provides a way to configure your services as if they were on a private network and connect remote servers over secure connections. How Do They Enhance Security? Utilizing private instead of public networking for internal communication is almost always preferable given the choice between the two. However, since other users within the data center are able to access the same network, you still must implement additional measures to secure communication between your servers. Using a VPN is, effectively, a way to map out a private network that only your servers can see. Communication will be fully private and secure. Other applications can be configured to pass their traffic over the virtual interface that the VPN software exposes. This way, only services that are meant to be consumable by clients on the public internet need to be exposed on the public network. How Difficult Is This to Implement? Utilizing private networks in a datacenter that has this capability is as simple as enabling the interface during your server's creation and configuring your applications and firewall to use the private network. Keep in mind that data center-wide private networks share space with other servers that use the same network. As for VPN, the initial setup is a bit more involved, but the increased security is worth it for most use-cases. Each server on a VPN must be install and configure the shared security and configuration data needed to establish the secure connection. After the VPN is up and running, applications must be configured to use the VPN tunnel. To learn about setting up a VPN to securely connect your infrastructure, check out our OpenVPN tutorial. Public Key Infrastructure and SSL/TLS Encryption Public key infrastructure, or PKI, refers to a system that is designed to create, manage, and validate certificates for identifying individuals and encrypting communication. SSL or TLS certificates can be used to authenticate different entities to one another. After authentication, they can also be used to established encrypted communication. How Do They Enhance Security? Establishing a certificate authority and managing certificates for your servers allows each entity within your infrastructure to validate the other members identity and encrypt their traffic. This can prevent man-in-the-middle attacks where an attacker imitates a server in your infrastructure to intercept traffic. Each server can be configured to trust a centralized certificate authority. Afterwards, any certificate that the authority signs can be implicitly trusted. If the applications and protocols you are using to communicate support TLS/SSL encryption, this is a way of encrypting your system without the overhead of a VPN tunnel (which also often uses SSL internally). How Difficult Is This to Implement? Configuring a certificate authority and setting up the rest of the public key infrastructure can involve quite a bit of initial effort. Furthermore, managing certificates can create an additional administration burden when new certificates need to be created, signed, or revoked. For many users, implementing a full-fledged public key infrastructure will make more sense as their infrastructure needs grow. Securing communications between components using VPN may be a good stop gap measure until you reach a point where PKI is worth the extra administration costs. Service Auditing Up until now, we have discussed some technology that you can implement to improve your security. However, a big portion of security is analyzing your systems, understanding the available attack surfaces, and locking down the components as best as you can. Service auditing is a process of discovering what services are running on the servers in your infrastructure. Often, the default operating system is configured to run certain services at boot. Installing additional software can sometimes pull in dependencies that are also auto-started. Service auditing is a way of knowing what services are running on your system, which ports they are using for communication, and what protocols are accepted. This information can help you configure your firewall settings. How Does It Enhance Security? Servers start many processes for internal purposes and to handle external clients. Each of these represents an expanded attack surface for malicious users. The more services that you have running, the greater chance there is of a vulnerability existing in your accessible software. Once you have a good idea of what network services are running on your machine, you can begin to analyze these services. Some questions that you will want to ask yourself for each one are: Should this service be running? Is the service running on interfaces that it doesn't needs to? Should it be bound to a single IP? Are your firewall rules structured to allow legitimate traffic pass to this service? Are your firewall rules blocking traffic that is not legitimate? Do you have a method of receiving security alerts about vulnerabilities for each of these services? This type of service audit should be standard practice when configuring any new server in your infrastructure. How Difficult Is This to Implement? Doing a basic service audit is incredibly simple. You can find out which services are listening to ports on each interface by using the netstat command. A simple example that shows the program name, PID, and addresses being used for listening for TCP and UDP traffic is: sudo netstat -plunt You will see output that looks like this: Active Internet connections (only servers) Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 887/sshd tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 919/nginx tcp6 0 0 :::22 :::* LISTEN 887/sshd tcp6 0 0 :::80 :::* LISTEN 919/nginx The main columns you need to stay attention to are Proto, Local Address, and PID/Program name. If the address is 0.0.0.0, then the service is accepting connections on all interfaces. File Auditing and Intrusion Detection Systems File auditing is the process of comparing the current system against a record of the files and file characteristics of your system when it is a known-good state. This is used to detect changes to the system that may have been authorized. An intrusion detection system, or IDS, is a piece of software that monitors a system or network for unauthorized activity. Many host-based IDS implementations use file auditing as a method of checking whether the system has changed. How Do They Enhance Security? Similar to the above service-level auditing, if you are serious about ensuring a secure system, it is very useful to be able to perform file-level audits of your system. This can be done periodically by the administrator or as part of an automated processes in an IDS. These strategies are some of the only ways to be absolutely sure that your filesystem has not been altered by some user or process. For many reasons, intruders often wish to remain hidden so that they can continue to exploit the server for an extended period of time. They might replace binaries with compromised versions. Doing an audit of the filesystem will tell you if any of the files have been altered, allowing you to be confident in the integrity of your server environment. How Difficult Is This to Implement? Implementing an IDS or conducting file audits can be quite an intensive process. The initial configuration involves telling the auditing system about any non-standard changes you've made to the server and defining paths that should be excluded to create a baseline reading. It also makes day-to-day operations more involved. It complicates updating procedures as you will need to re-check the system prior to running updates and then recreate the baseline after running the update to catch changes to the software versions. You will also need to offload the reports to another location so that an intruder cannot alter the audit to cover their tracks. While this may increase your administration load, being able to check your system against a known-good copy is one of the only ways of ensuring that files have not been altered without your knowledge. Some popular file auditing / intrusion detection systems are Tripwire and Aide. Isolated Execution Environments Isolating execution environments refers to any method in which individual components are run within their own dedicated space. This can mean separating out your discrete application components to their own servers or may refer to configuring your services to operate in chroot environments or containers. The level of isolation depends heavily on your application's requirements and the realities of your infrastructure. How Do They Enhance Security? Isolating your processes into individual execution environments increases your ability to isolate any security problems that may arise. Similar to how bulkheads and compartments can help contain hull breaches in ships, separating your individual components can limit the access that an intruder has to other pieces of your infrastructure. How Difficult Is This to Implement? Depending on the type of containment you choose, isolating your applications can be relatively simple. By packaging your individual components in containers, you can quickly achieve some measure of isolation, but note that Docker does not consider its containerization a security feature. Setting up a chroot environment for each piece can provide some level of isolation as well, but this also is not foolproof method of isolation as there are often ways of breaking out of a chroot environment. Moving components to dedicated machines is the best level of isolation, and in many cases may be the easiest, but may cost more for the additional machines. Conclusion The strategies outlined above are only some of the enhancements you can make to improve the security of your systems. It is important to recognize that, while it's better late than never, security measures decrease in their effectiveness the longer you wait to implement them. Security cannot be an afterthought and must be implemented from the start alongside the services and applications you are providing.