[gentoo-security] Re: System knockout :-(

[David Talkington]

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cummings@××××××××.net wrote:

>> Backups are not the problem... Reinstalling a perfectly well tuned
>> Gentoo system gives me the shivers... I'm seriously thinking of using
>> mirrored raid partitions next time.
>
>I considered a Raid 1 solution, but it's slow and has one major drawback.
>What happens if you get hacked because a security problem is slow to get
>patched?  With raid 1 both drives get hacked, but if you manually mirror
>the second drive on changes if you get hacked you would be able to swap
>them, update the problem, then mirror the fixed system to the previously
>hacked version, saving you the time of recompiling and tuning the system.

Repeat after me as you write on the chalkboard 100 times (*):  

RAID is not a backup solution.

It is uptime protection against a very specific set of possible
hardware-related failures.  Disk redundancy does nothing to protect you
from deleted files, breakins, emerges gone awry, careless use of root
privilege, scripting bugs, corrupted filesystems, improper shutdowns, ad
nauseum.  Make backups.  If you have data that you truly care about,
make offsite backups.

Good luck ... -d

(*) I wish I'd known about for() loops in 3rd grade.  :)

- -- 
David Talkington

PGP key: http://www.prairienet.org/~dtalk/004B8F8B.asc
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