Security Tip

Tw33Ty — Thu, 03 Jun 2004 16:36:28 +0000

Tip of the week

StartX by default listens on port 6000, to see this you can type at a terminal:

netstat -an

This is not considered secure, or good linux practice to leave it listening for connections, since this can be exploited and leave you vulnerable. To close the connection, and make X a more secure place change to the directory where startx is at:

cd /usr/X11R6/bin/

With your editor open startx, and look for the following line:

serverargs=" "

Change the line now to reflect this:

serverargs="-nolisten tcp"

Be sure you don't forget to add the dash ---> - in front of 'nolisten tcp' Now save and close startx, log off Xwindows your desktop, and log back in, then run 'netstat -an' and you will now see that 6000 has been closed and is not there anymore

Tw33Ty's blog

Security Tip