In this episode Dorothy and I try to understand the ISC DHCP server fail over configuration. There are two servers, primary and secondary. The servers work in a load balancing configuration by splitting the subnet in half. We understand that part. The rest is a confusing mix that we're not sure we get at all.

In this episode we talk about setting up a DHCP server on Linux. We go through the process of installing the software, configuring the service, and analyzing how DHCP works. We also talk about how some of this applies to security. We learned a lot from this project.

A lot of security experts talk about threat hunting, packet analysis and pen testing. Can you do effective threat hunting? Are you able to analyze packets and spot the bad guy? For most people in IT, the answer to these questions is a big fat no. We're here to tell you that security doesn't need to be this hard or complex. It doesn't have to be rocket science. We talk about some best practices that can make security a little easier.

LINKS

The CIS Controls: https://www.cisecurity.org/controls/

NIST - Small Business Information Security: https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/nistir/7621/rev-1/final

CIS Implementation Guide: https://www.cisecurity.org/white-papers/cis-controls-sme-guide/

In this episode Dorothy tests Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver. I go over some of the projects I'm working on. We decided to test Ubuntu 18.04 to see if Dorothy can use it, or would she need some training. We did the install in a VM using VirtualBox. A few clicks and settings changes later, and we had it up and running. As far as we can tell, 18.04 looks very similar to 16.04.

For this episode, Dorothy decided to ask me how I got into IT. We also talk about why we focus on processes, check lists and disaster recovery plans. We finish with things that might help others get into IT. Things like building a home lab and watching youtube videos on setting up a Windows Domain. When I started in IT, building a Windows domain at home wasn't free. Things have changed a lot since I started.

In this episode we talk about Disaster Recovery With Backblaze B2. We talk about backup, recovery, business impact analysis, and business continuity planning. We’ve decided to try Backblaze B2 as our automated backup solution. This gives us client side encryption, file versions, and snapshots. No more external hard drive for us.

In this episode Dorothy and I talk about information security as a business. If we wanted to start our own business, what kind of services would we provide?

LINKS

* Black Hills Information Security video on GDPR: https://www.blackhillsinfosec.com/webcast-gdpr-spring-storm-warning/

* DFARS: https://www.nist.gov/mep/cybersecurity-resources-manufacturers/dfars800-171-compliance

In this episode we review the new CIS Critical Security Controls. This is a list of 20 security controls that you can use to keep your organization safe. We will be using them to keep our Raspberry Pi data center secure.

LINKS

* Critical Security Controls: https://www.cisecurity.org/controls/

* Sans Cheat Sheets: https://pen-testing.sans.org/resources/downloads

In this episode we talk about IT as a process. Setting up a workstation, a printer, or a server can all be done as a process. Dorothy is trying to get the configuration of Raspbian Lite down to a process. We talk about her original change ticket for configuring Raspberry Pi 1. We compare that to her ticket for Raspberry Pi number 3. She has a growing number of things that need to be configured. She should have a process figured out by the time she gets to Raspberry Pi number 4. Which is the last one in the stack. We’re moving in the right direction.

Zabbix is installed and pulling data from hosts on the network. We’re currently monitoring our Cisco switch, our Synology DiskStation and our Gigabyte server. Alerts were generated as soon as data was collected. We talk about adding hosts to Zabbix. We also talk about how valuable the information is. We should have installed network monitoring a long time ago.