[seul-edu] Web Migration FAQ Draft 2.0

[Michael Viron <mviron@wsdo.sao.uwf.edu>]

Guys & Gals,
 Below is a draft of a response to the main person responsible for the web
migration at UWF from NT to Linux.  I need your comments and suggestions on
improving it before I send it.

Mike Viron

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"Q Why do we have to migrate to a NT server?
A Moving the university web pages from a UNIX server to a Windows NT server
will provide the university with greater security and stronger integration
with the rest of the university systems."

Although NT may provide stronger integration with some of the university
systems, a properly configured linux box can be as secure, if not more so,
than Windows NT.  A case in point would be the University's mail server
which is currently configured as an "open relay" SMTP server (in addition
to handling pop3 connections).  Open relay SMTP servers are dangerous
because they allow people external to the university to use university
facilities and equipment to send unsolicited commercial email (SPAM) to
unsuspecting users both inside and outside of the university which
tarnishes the reputation of UWF as an excellent school for computer science.  

The Web Spinners main server is running sendmail under linux, and only
accepts connections from either our office machines or from a uwf dialin
connection, not from all over the place.

You also made mention of the uwf.edu server running as a novell
server--Linux has many software packages (including samba) that allow the
same type of drag and drop interface.  Samba, if configured properly, can
be just as secure as serving files over the network on a Novell connection.