Linux Server Hardening and Compliance: A Basic Tutorial

Server security is of paramount importance to safeguard your data and infrastructure. Applying industry-specific security standards and benchmarks can help ensure that your Linux servers are hardened and compliant with recognized security best practices. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the process of hardening and auditing your Linux servers using security standards such as CIS (Center for Internet Security) and NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). We’ll provide code and command-line examples to help you achieve a higher level of server security.

Prerequisites:

• A Linux server (e.g., Ubuntu, CentOS, or Red Hat) with root or sudo access.
• Basic knowledge of Linux command-line operations.

Step 1: Installing Necessary Tools

Before you begin, ensure that you have the required tools installed on your Linux server. You can use the package manager for your specific distribution to install them:

For Debian/Ubuntu-based systems:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y openssh-server wget

For CentOS/RHEL-based systems:

sudo yum update
sudo yum install -y openssh-server wget