In this final chapter, I'd like to do a roundup of some quick tips and tricks that don't necessarily fit in with the previous chapters. Think of these tips as time savers for the busy administrator. First, you will learn about some quick ways to see which system services are running, in order to ensure that nothing that isn't needed is running. Then, we'll look at how to password protect the GRUB 2 bootloader, how to securely configure BIOS/UEFI to help prevent attacks on a physically accessible machine, and how to use a checklist to perform a secure initial system setup.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
- Auditing system services
- Password protecting the GRUB2 configuration
- Securely configuring and then password protecting UEFI/BIOS
- Using a security checklist when setting up your system