Code, InfoSec and Server Stuff

Views are my own and not my employer's

Personal Development Blog...

Coding for fun since 1996, Learn by doing and sharing.

Buy a domain name, then create your own server (get $25 free credit)

"If you're not still learning, you're already dying."
- Ryan Holiday - Ego is the Enemy

Follow me on Twitter: @FearbySoftware

View All Posts.

Weakness

Strengths and weaknesses

by

What are your strengths and weaknesses? Are you avoiding doing something because of your personality type or focusing on something else?

Advertisement:



I thought this post would be helpful to a number of people as the Technology industry is filled with endless new frameworks and activities that require grit and focus. Sites like Udemy, Lynda.com, Pluralsight and others allow you to learn new technology but this might all be for nought if you can’t communicate well. Skills, education and experience are acquired but we use our personality daily to communicate and interact. Some say you cannot change your personality but knowing your personality type can help you interact or develop applications better. Knowing your personality type can help you interact better with family, friends, clients and colleagues.

It is important how you interact with people and personal alities is part of it (along with age, sex, religion, rapport, trust etc).

Personality Types

View the 16 Personality Types https://www.16personalities.com/personality-types  (ISTJ, ISFJ, INFJ, INTJ, ISTP, ISFP, INFP, INTP, ESTP, ESFP, ENFP, ENTP, ESTJ, ESFJ, ENFJ, ENTJ).

Read about the background of the personality types on 16 personalities here.

The Myers and Briggs Foundation have a good breakdown on the 16 personality types.

Take a Personality Test

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test is a good site that allows you to take a 30min quiz and show your personality. I have tested myself, family and kids and it is bang on. Take the test here.

How to use the test results

  • How to talk and listen at work
  • How to talk with family
  • How to talk to children
  • How to talk to spouses.
  • How to understand your self and family better.

My Personality Type

I am an INTJ-T and proud of it. Here is a breakdown of my personality type https://www.16personalities.com/intj-personality

  • “Innovative inventors with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.” (snip from 16personalities.com).
  • “The INTP personality type is fairly rare, making up only three percent of the population, which is definitely a good thing for them, as there’s nothing they’d be more unhappy about than being “common”. INTPs pride themselves on their inventiveness and creativity, their unique perspective and vigorous intellect. Usually known as the philosopher, the architect, or the dreamy professor, INTPs have been responsible for many scientific discoveries throughout history.” (snip from 16personalities.com).
  • INTPs are known for their brilliant theories and unrelenting logic – in fact, they are considered the most logically precise of all the personality types (snip from 16personalities.com).

My supposed personality strengths are..

  • Quick, Imaginative and Strategic Mind
  • High Self-Confidence
  • Independent and Decisive
  • Hard-working and determined
  • Open-minded
  • Jacks-of-all-Trades

My supposed personality weaknesses are..

  • Very Private and Withdrawn
  • Insensitive
  • Absent-minded
  • Condescending
  • Loathe Rules and Guidelines
  • Second-Guess Themselves

Natural Reaction to my personality types

My natural reaction is to accept my strengths and reject my weaknesses but knowing your weaknesses can help you plan better or improve skills or interactions.

What is normal? 

JPSears talking about what is normal..


Positive Thinking

I am not a motivator so I will encourage you to read (or listen to) the books  The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday , Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday and Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth (Thanks, Zach) if you want to self-improve.

Psychology

Snip from (Wikipedia) “Personality is a set of individual differences that are affected by the development of an individual: values, attitudes, personal memories, social relationships, habits, and skills. Different personality theorists present their own definitions of the word based on their theoretical positions. The term “personality trait” refers to enduring personal characteristics that are revealed in a particular pattern of behaviour in a variety of situations.”

Who are you, really? The puzzle of personality | Brian Little is a good video on who we are and how we interact.

Psychology Dimensions = (Openness, Continuous, Extroversion, Agreeably, Neuroticism) = Wellbeing.

Being Understood

Here is a great video on being understood (great for INTP-T’s).

Personality Psychology

Snip (from Wikipedia): Personality also refers to the pattern of thoughts, feelings, social adjustments, and behaviours consistently exhibited over time that strongly influences one’s expectations, self-perceptions, values, and attitudes. It also predicts human reactions to other people, problems, and stress. Knowing your personality type can allow you to use on your strength and focus on your weaknesses.

Alan Watts Psychology of Consciousness HQ talks about the evolution of psychology and applications and shallowness.

Psychology

What is Psychology? (Snip from  Wikipedia ).”Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. His work has been influential not only in psychiatry but also in anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, and religious studies.”

SWOT Analysis

Direction and focus with SWOT Analysis technique.

Tips

  • Work to your strengths.
  • Plan around your weaknesses (use tools to plan better or don’t endlessly research solutions and not deliver).
  • Know other peoples personality (if they agree)..
  • Consider doing a SWOT Analysis with projects (or yourself).

Donate and make this blog better




Ask a question or recommend an article

Your Name (required)

Your Email (required)

Your Question

v1.4 added info on being normal

Securing Ubuntu in the cloud

by

It is easy to deploy servers to the cloud within a few minutes, you can have a cloud-based server that you (or others can use). ubuntu has a great guide on setting up basic security issues but what do you need to do.

Advertisement:



If you do not secure your server expect it to be hacked into. Below are tips on securing your cloud server.

First, read more on scanning your server with Lynis security scan.

Always use up to date software

Always use update software, malicious users can detect what software you use with sites like shodan.io (or use port scan tools) and then look for weaknesses from well-published lists (e.g WordPress, Windows, MySQL, node, LifeRay, Oracle etc). People can even use Google to search for login pages or sites with passwords in HTML (yes that simple).  Once a system is identified by a malicious user they can send automated bots to break into your site (trying millions of passwords a day) or use tools to bypass existing defences (Security researcher Troy Hunt found out it’s child’s play).

Portscan sites like https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=scan are good for knowing what you have exposed.

You can also use local programs like nmap to view open ports

Instal nmap

Find open ports

Limit ssh connections

Read more here.

Use ufw to set limits on login attempts

Only allow known IP’s access to your valuable ports

Delete unwanted firewall rules

Only allow known IP’s to certain ports

Also, set outgoing traffic to known active servers and ports

Don’t use weak/common Diffie-Hellman key for SSL certificates, more information here.

More info on generating SSL certs here and setting here and setting up Public Key Pinning here.

Intrusion Prevention Software

Do run fail2ban: Guide here https://www.linode.com/docs/security/using-fail2ban-for-security

I use iThemes Security to secure my WordPress and block repeat failed logins from certain IP addresses.

iThemes Security can even lock down your WordPress.

You can set iThemes to auto lock out users on x failed logins

Remember to use allowed whitelists though (it is so easy to lock yourself out of servers).

Passwords

Do have strong passwords and change the root password provided by the hosts. https://howsecureismypassword.net/ is a good site to see how strong your password is from brute force password attempts. https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm is a good site to obtain a strong password.  Do follow Troy Hunt’s blog and twitter account to keep up to date with security issues.

Configure a Firewall Basics

You should install a firewall on your Ubuntu and configure it and also configure a firewall with your hosts (e.g AWS, Vultr, Digital Ocean).

Configure a Firewall on AWS

My AWS server setup guide here. AWS allow you to configure the firewall here in the Amazon Console.

TypeProtocolPort RangeSourceComment
HTTPTCP800.0.0.0/0Opens a web server port for later
All ICMPALLN/A0.0.0.0/0Allows you to ping
All trafficALLAll0.0.0.0/0Not advisable long term but OK for testing today.
SSHTCP220.0.0.0/0Not advisable, try and limit this to known IP’s only.
HTTPSTCP4430.0.0.0/0Opens a secure web server port for later

Configure a Firewall on Digital Ocean

Configuring a firewall on Digital Ocean (create a $5/m server here).  You can configure your Digital Ocean droplet firewall by clicking Droplet, Networking then Manage Firewall after logging into Digital Ocean.

Configure a Firewall on Vultr

Configuring a firewall on Vultr (create a $2.5/m server here).

Don’t forget to set IP rules for IPV4 and IPV6, Only set the post you need to allow and ensure applications have strong passwords.

Ubuntu has a firewall built in (documentation).

Enable the firewall

Adding common ports

Add a whitelist for your IP (use http://icanhazip.com/ to get your IP) to ensure you won’t get kicked out of your server.

More help here.  Here is a  good guide on ufw commands. Info on port numbers here.

If you don’t have a  Digital Ocean server for $5 a month click here and if a $2.5 a month Vultr server here.

Backups

rsync is a good way to copy files to another server or use Bacula

Basics

Initial server setup guide (Digital Ocean).

Sudo (admin user)

Read this guide on the Linux sudo command (the equivalent if run as administrator on Windows).

Users

List users on an Ubuntu OS (or compgen -u)

Common output

Add User

e.g

Add user to a group

Show users in a group

This will show users in a group

Remove a user

Rename user

Change user password

Groups

Show all groups

Common output

You can create your own groups but first, you must be aware of group ids

Then you can see your systems groups and ids.

Create a group

Permissions

Read this https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FilePermissions

How to list users on Ubuntu.

Read more on setting permissions here.

Chmod help can be found here.

Install Fail2Ban

I used this guide on installing Fail2Ban.

Check Fail2Ban often and add blocks to the firewall of known bad IPs

Best practices

Ubuntu has a guide on basic security setup here.

Startup Processes

It is a good idea to review startup processes from time to time.

Accounts

  • Read up on the concept of least privilege access for apps and services here.
  • Read up on chmod permissions.

Updates

Do update your operating system often.

Minimal software

Only install what software you need

Exploits and Keeping up to date

Do keep up to date with exploits and vulnerabilities

Secure your applications

  • NodeJS: Enable logging in applications you install or develop.

Ban repeat Login attempts with FailBan

Fail2Ban config

Hosts File Hardening

Add

Add a whitelist with your ip on /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf (see this)

Restart the service

Intrusion detection (logging) systems

Tripwire will not block or prevent intrusions but it will log and give you a heads up with risks and things of concern

Install Tripwire.

Running Tripwire

This will scan your system for issues of note

My Output.

More on Tripwire here.

Hardening PHP

Hardening PHP config (and backing the PHP config it up), first create an info.php file in your website root folder with this info

Now look for what PHP file is loadingPHP Config

Back that your PHP config file

TIP: Delete the file with phpinfo() in it as it is a security risk to leave it there.

TIP: Read the OWASP cheat sheet on using PHP securely here and securing php.ini here.

Some common security changes

Don’t forget to review logs, more config changes here.

Antivirus

Yes, it is a good idea to run antivirus in Ubuntu, here is a good list of antivirus software

I am installing ClamAV as it can be installed on the command line and is open source.

ClamAV help here.

Scan a folder

Setup auto update antivirus definitions

I set auto updates 24 times a day (every hour) via daemon updates.

tip: Download manual antivirus update definitions. If you only have a 512MB server your update may fail and you may want to stop fresh claim/php/nginx and mysql before you update to ensure the antivirus definitions update. You can move this to a con job and set this to update at set times over daemon to ensure updates happen.

Manual scan with a bash script

Create a bash script

Bash script contents to update antivirus definitions.

Edit the crontab to run the script every hour

Uninstalling Clam AV

You may need to uninstall Clamav if you don’t have a lot of memory or find updates are too big.

Setup Unattended Ubuntu Security updates

At login, you should receive

Other

  • Read this awesome guide.
  • install Fail2Ban
  • Do check your log files if you suspect suspicious activity.

Check out the extensive Hardening a Linux Server guide at thecloud.org.uk: https://thecloud.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Hardening_a_Linux_Server

 

Donate and make this blog better




Ask a question or recommend an article

Your Name (required)

Your Email (required)

Your Question

v1.92 added hardening a linux server link