Lynis--A Cool System Audit Tool
Security - Security Tools

by Donnie Tevault

Lynis is a handy, simple-to-use security auditing tool by Michael Boelen, who also wrote Rootkit Hunter. It's free GPL-licensed software that can be used on Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, PcBSD, Mac OSX, or Solaris. Here are some of the things for which Lynis can test:

 

  • Available authentication methods

  • Expired SSL certificates

  • Outdated software

  • User accounts without passwords

  • Incorrect file permissions

  • Firewall auditing

Lynis author's web site.

 

Lynis home page

 

The documentation is well-written, so you shouldn't have any trouble following it.

 

Lynis Documentation

 

One thing that makes Lynis so easy to use is that you don't have to install it. You can just untar the source file into your home directory, and run the program from there. You can also run the program from either a USB "thumb" drive or a floppy disk. (That makes it very handy for field work.)

 

Downloading the program file.

 

 

If you do want to actually install Lynis, so that it can be available for all users, the documentation makes suggestions on how to do it.  The author's website also has links to unofficial installation packages for different Linux distros.

 

Unofficial packages

 

And, here's how it looks in action. . .

 

Lynis in action

 

As I've said, it's a handy little tool, and is very simple to use.  Whether your interest is in home or enterprise computer security, it's definitely worth a look-see.

 

Download it for free from the author's web site, at:

http://www.rootkit.nl