Arch Linux

Martificiam

Member

Registered: 2013-02-02

Posts: 8

Is Arch Linux secure for Web development and daily needs?

Hello,

I'm not quite sure if this is the place to post this, but I'll ask anyway. Forgive me my ignorance if I missed out on the general topic for such questions.

I am concerned about my data privacy while using Arch. While I've been a happy Arch user in the past who liked to tinker with his system to customize it to his needs, I am interested to hear your opinions about its security.

Basically, I'm going to be using my computer for web development, as a private git server in a local (home) environment, as a home entertainment machine and do some online banking from time to time. What security measures should I take to protect myself and my data? The Arch Wiki is a great resource on that, I know, but it's huge as well and it's not really feasible to know the answer to my question by just skimming through the articles there.

I'm wondering whether there are some sort of general best practices to secure an Arch Linux system. Being a distro designed to give you the bare essentials only (as a base to build something on), Arch Linux always scares me a little in terms of security, because I'm often a bit paranoid that I might have forgotten to tighten the security of my system. The latest GNOME is my choice for a desktop environment and using it on a barebones Arch install gives me certain worries about its security. I'd like to, for instance, integrate my Gmail account with it, but I'm quite concerned that I may be missing to set up something somewhere in the Arch Linux system core that enables some sort of necessary security which isn't available by default. I haven't experienced any security issues with Arch whatsoever, but I also want to be sure that the system I use is configured according to the best practices out there.

Please don't suggest Arch derivatives, such as Antergos and Manjaro. I've already tried them and I'd really like to stick to Arch.

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,424

Website

Re: Is Arch Linux secure for Web development and daily needs?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Security

This utimately comes down to how you set your system up; not Arch per se.

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Registered Linux User #482438

bstaletic

Member

Registered: 2014-02-02

Posts: 658

Re: Is Arch Linux secure for Web development and daily needs?

Read this page, it talks about different ways you could make your system more secure (like tresor or placing /boot on usb drive which you would carry with you).

To conclude: Arch will be as secureas you ake it to be, but don't over do it.

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My dotfiles

Martificiam

Member

Registered: 2013-02-02

Posts: 8

Re: Is Arch Linux secure for Web development and daily needs?

Thank you for your replies.

I was already looking at that article at the time of posting, but I wasn't sure if it's the "go-to" resource for security on Arch. Once again, thanks for reassuring me.