Two things missing from Ubuntu - Backup and Firewall - can we have them in Horay

[Thomas Beckett]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 00:12:30 +0000, Ben Edwards <funkytwig at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have to say Ubuntu is almost the perfect Desktop distro, apart from
> two ommisions - User Friendly Firewall and a User friendly Backup
> solution.  so lets deal with each.
> 
> Backup
> 
> I recently put a backup system in place to copy /home to a DVD-RW
> every nite.  I used a series of DVDs with eatch day of the week
> written on them.  The backup run at 4am and eatch morning they would
> come in, remove the disk from last nite (which is ejected) and replace
> it with the relevant disk.  Every week the Friday disk is taken off
> site and kept - and replaced with a new dist.  I am emailed the
> results.
> 
> This is a very simple effective solution but fiddly to set up (I use
> dar, cdrecord and makeiso and set up a cron job).  What we really need
> is a GUI which allows the user to select a backup strategy, gives them
> instructions and just works.  Douse such a thing exist and can we have
> one in Ubuntu?
> 
> This may be a desktop distro but lots of people are using it as such
> stand alone - dragging/drooping /home onto the window that popes up
> when you insert a DVD is hardly a elegant solution, for a start the
> DVD may need to be blanked.
> 
> Firewall
> 
> Antivirus may not be necessary but a firewall is.  A lot of people
> have them built into there router but not all.  My very cheap wireless
> router (£35) has one and it comes set up in a sensible way by default.
>  It would be great if Ubuntu had one by default.  Again as a stand
> alone desktop distro people may connect it to a cable modem or DSL
> router which douse not have a Firewall.  Myself I use Telewest in the
> UK and it comes with RJ45 cable modem without a firewall and I own a
> budget DSL router without one.
> 
> Ben
> 
> --
> Ben Edwards - Poole, UK, England
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There was talk on this list a while ago about mondo which is aparently
very good for backups but has some internal problems with its
develoepers or something and so is not in active development any more
- i dunno

Failing this - you could just use the dar command and set a cron job
for whenever you want it to run.

As for firewalls, Ubuntu by default does not have  any external ports
open at all and would only start listening for connections if you
installed a relevent server such as mail/ftp/ssh/telnet etc.
If you want to use a server then install firestarter - its a great
tool for a firewall.

http://www.fs-security.com/

it is available in universe i think , but the latest vesion was only
released on Dec 13th so the version in universe is likely slightly
old. from the site you ca get .deb packages anyway so shouldnt be too
much bother to install - or rebuild an ubuntu package from source.

Tom