[ubuntu-uk] Advice re 8.04 server edition

[Tony Arnold]

Mac,

Mac wrote:

> I don't know how essential upnp is - any advice?  But I'm a bit 
> surprised that automatic updating needs to be added - is that right?

Isn't upnp used by some applications to control a router/firewall to let
in incoming connections etc? I'd have thought this wasn't necessary on a
server!

Some would argue that automatic updates on a server is a bad thing
because in general you want your server to be stable and you don't want
some automatic update breaking it. Although I admit the risk of this is
quite low with Ubuntu.

On a server it's quite easy to set up. Just create a cron job under root
that does 'apt-get update && apt-get upgrade' and run the job at a
convenient time. This assumes the servers is running 24x7!

Regards,
Tony.
-- 
Tony Arnold, IT Security Coordinator, University of Manchester,
IT Services Division, Kilburn Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL.
T: +44 (0)161 275 6093, F: +44 (0)870 136 1004, M: +44 (0)773 330 0039
E: tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk, H: http://www.man.ac.uk/Tony.Arnold