USETIM 2009

this depends on the opatering system you are using.lets assume you are a sensible person and are using a truly Unix system like FreeBSD or GNU/Linux.you need to firstly create a user/group for the database to run from. this user and group should only have access to the directories needed to run the program and host the database. also you want to have a firewall, which depending on what exactly your box is doing (some people like to run multiple services on one box generally considered a bad idea unless special circumstances.)this firewall needs to only allow the bare minimum of services through. you want to create a script that backs up the home directory of the database user because you will obviously find all the configuration files here, as well as the database itself (if you put it there, and you should) you want to put this script in the crontab and set it to run as often as you feel necessary. if you have a lot of changes, you want to set it to run daily, figure a time of least activity.now depending on the database itself, you might need/want to create users (through the database, not through the OS) for accessing the data, although if its nothing personal/sensitive you may get away with a guest log in.and remember, the rule of least privilege.this means all your programs and scripts should only be exicuted(ing) with a minimal privilege level, nothing more.also check out Tiger. its a cool program that makes all kinds of log files and lets you view them all at one place. it also runs some rootkit checkers.then there is the good old 60% rule. if you system is running over 60% of anything at any given time keep a sharp eye. it doesn't mean anything bad but its just a general rule of thumb that you should have room to handle more then your expected load just in case.anyways use common sense if you only have a few people accessing this database but your network traffic is high, something is up.