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Any developer that can't setup a server has fundamental gaps in their skillset.

alex_suzuki 4y ago
Someone missed the DevOps revolution…
unregistereddev 4y ago
On a trivial level I agree, but only on a trivial level. Most developers will not set up a server in the most secure, maintainable manner. They're going to miss important things: - Disable password-based auth for ssh (require key-based auth) - Enable fail2ban or similar to slow down brute-force login attempts - Configure firewall - Install monitoring tools, antivirus, possibly backup daemons, etc - Setup a sane swapfile for your use case, and configure monitoring tools to alert when memory pressure gets too high - Setup disk mounts, configure monitoring tools to alert when disk space is low, and consider a cron job to automatically clean up tempfiles - Either set up automated updates (typically excluding kernel upgrades), or have a standard schedule for manually applying updates ...and probably other things that I'm forgetting because I'm a developer, and it has been years since I've been a sysadmin.
- olddustytrail 4y ago
  I've done the sysadmin, DevOps, SRE journey. A couple of others spring to mind: - if you're not regularly testing your backups, you don't have backups - monitor SSL certs for expiry. It's amazing how many outages I've seen because this was missed. - are you allowing direct connection to your server from the internet, or do you want to go through a bastion host. Do you need 2FA on this, say because you need to meet ISO27001. - do all the above through CM (like Ansible or Puppet) for obvious reasons.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  I have a rant here about security being mostly bullshit. Not even sysadmins can setup a server "in the most secure, maintainable manner". You don't hire a dedicated sys admin because they know some voodoo magic developers don't, you hire a sys admin because they have the _TIME_ to watch for security updates. And you _PAY_ a company like RedHat to ease that burden. A dedicated sysadmin will typically do a better job than a non-dedicated developer, but if that developer cannot do a passable job, that's a gap in their skillset. I may not be a network engineer, but I damned well understand DNS, MPLS, networking, gateways, and the like. Any developer who doesn't has gaps.
kingrazor 4y ago
Maybe this says more about the devs I've worked with than devs as a whole, but most devs I've personally met know next to nothing about servers, and wouldn't be able to set one up if you asked them.

Someone missed the DevOps revolution…

On a trivial level I agree, but only on a trivial level. Most developers will not set up a server in the most secure, maintainable manner. They're going to miss important things: - Disable password-based auth for ssh (require key-based auth) - Enable fail2ban or similar to slow down brute-force login attempts - Configure firewall - Install monitoring tools, antivirus, possibly backup daemons, etc - Setup a sane swapfile for your use case, and configure monitoring tools to alert when memory pressure gets too high - Setup disk mounts, configure monitoring tools to alert when disk space is low, and consider a cron job to automatically clean up tempfiles - Either set up automated updates (typically excluding kernel upgrades), or have a standard schedule for manually applying updates ...and probably other things that I'm forgetting because I'm a developer, and it has been years since I've been a sysadmin.

olddustytrail 4y ago
I've done the sysadmin, DevOps, SRE journey. A couple of others spring to mind: - if you're not regularly testing your backups, you don't have backups - monitor SSL certs for expiry. It's amazing how many outages I've seen because this was missed. - are you allowing direct connection to your server from the internet, or do you want to go through a bastion host. Do you need 2FA on this, say because you need to meet ISO27001. - do all the above through CM (like Ansible or Puppet) for obvious reasons.
P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
I have a rant here about security being mostly bullshit. Not even sysadmins can setup a server "in the most secure, maintainable manner". You don't hire a dedicated sys admin because they know some voodoo magic developers don't, you hire a sys admin because they have the _TIME_ to watch for security updates. And you _PAY_ a company like RedHat to ease that burden. A dedicated sysadmin will typically do a better job than a non-dedicated developer, but if that developer cannot do a passable job, that's a gap in their skillset. I may not be a network engineer, but I damned well understand DNS, MPLS, networking, gateways, and the like. Any developer who doesn't has gaps.

kingrazor 4y ago

Maybe this says more about the devs I've worked with than devs as a whole, but most devs I've personally met know next to nothing about servers, and wouldn't be able to set one up if you asked them.