From owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 20 11:56:11 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B766416A4BF for ; Wed, 20 Aug 2003 11:56:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp100.mail.sc5.yahoo.com (smtp100.mail.sc5.yahoo.com [216.136.174.138]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 425D243F75 for ; Wed, 20 Aug 2003 11:56:11 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from gregw_work@yahoo.com) Received: from ool-44c63a8c.dyn.optonline.net (HELO yahoo.com) (gregw?work@68.198.58.140 with plain) by smtp.mail.vip.sc5.yahoo.com with SMTP; 20 Aug 2003 17:34:38 -0000 Message-ID: <3F43B127.2030807@yahoo.com> Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 13:34:31 -0400 From: Greg Weiss Organization: PlezeCall User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: doc@FreeBSD.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: feedback, security documentation X-BeenThere: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: gregw_work@yahoo.com List-Id: Documentation project List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 18:56:12 -0000 Being totally new to FreeBSD (but not Unix or BSD), I thought I'd give you a heads up to the first thing I noticed in your documentation. The FreeBSD Handbook, in the Security section, talks about setting up a system securely but seems to totally omit the security process; ie how to keep your machine patched against the exploits that constantly arrive in the wild. Where to find notifications of security patches, etc. Which is the first thing I went to look for since I received a system already setup. I did eventually find info in the "errata" portion of the release notes, but it probably is worth mentioning elsewhere for newcomers like myself. Perhaps a 10.3.10 section, titled "Check regularly for security advisories", with at a minimum, something like this:

Keeping your system updated with the latest security patches is an important aspect of system security. You may want to subscribe to various email lists for this purpose. You can find FreeBSD security advisories within the release notes of the latest version of FreeBSD, at: http://www.freebsd.org/releases/4.8R/errata.html http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.0R/errata.html

I hope you will accept this constructive cricism in the positive light it is intended. Thanks for the fine work. Good luck, Greg Weiss