thank you, everyone for giving me this wonderful advice. this will  
really help me loose less sleep over this project.

Thanks,
isaac
On Jan 18, 2007, at 8:22 AM, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

>
> "James K. Lowden" <jklowden@schemamania.org> writes:
>> Isaac Wagner-Muns wrote:
>>> I'm trying to set up a small shell account server for students at my
>>> school, and it seems to be quite a vast undertaking, mostly because
>>> of the security issues brought up by letting semi-anonymous people
>>> access my machine.
>>
>> I'm no security expert, but I'll answer anyway because you'll be  
>> lucky to
>> have a real expert answer.
>>
>> It's a matter of trust and degree.  There was a thread here just  
>> the other
>> day discussing what to do if someone you didn't know gained access  
>> to the
>> machine i.e., reinstall from known good media.  If your students are
>> *trying* to subvert the machine, you probably don't want to give them
>> accounts in the first place.
>
> There are companies like Panix that have thousands of shell users,
> some of whom certainly wish to subvert their hardware. They manage to
> remain secure anyway, and they don't have to re-install their boxes
> every week.
>
> Perry



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