Installation guide

Sentinix

Before you download, read the step-by-step installation guide to make sure you will be able to do it.

Alternatively, you might want to try it out first before installing anything. You can trial it at

http://sentinix.org/demo.shtml. Please read the instructions carefully before you click and write down all the

user names/passwords you'll need to try everything out.

SATAN (Security Administrator Tool for Analysing Networks)

Satan is the grandfather of most network security auditing tools. It was written in 1995, and is now a bit

outdated compared to the newer tools like NESSUS, SARA or SAINT. However, it is free, it still works, and

its source code remains a solid baseline for more modern tools of this class.

NESSUS

Nessus has become the Swiss Army knife of network security auditing in experienced circles. It is one step

up from all the other tools mentioned in this section. Unlike many other security scanners, Nessus does not

take anything for granted. For example, it will not simply assume that a given service is running on a fixed

port. If you run your web server on port 1234 instead of the standard port 80, Nessus will still detect it and

test its security. It can also be scripted to run customised attacks easily through its built in Nessus Attack

Scripting Language (NASL).

Unfortunately, as with most professional tools, it will not work right out of the box. To make best use of

Nessus, it requires configuration. Fortunately, it comes with excellent documentation and step by step

instructions.

SARA (Security Administrator's Research Assistant)

A good starting point to this comprehensive and reliable tool is the training slides that are available on the

web at

www-arc.com/sara/overview/sld001.htm. SARA (and NESSUS) is already installed and configured

ready to run on the bootable Local Area Security Linux CD – there is nothing to install, just boot from CD.

Nmap

Nmap (Network Mapper) is a free open source utility for network exploration or security auditing. It was

designed to rapidly scan large networks, although it works fine against single hosts. Nmap uses raw IP

packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application

name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running,

what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use and dozens of other characteristics. Nmap runs on most types

of computers and both console and graphical versions are available. Nmap is free software, available with

full source code under the terms of the GNU GPL.