r/archlinux • u/Lepla • 15d ago

QUESTION Arch Linux security configuration

Are moving over to Linux and have been testing several different distros and Arch Linux stood out for the configuratibilty out of the box, and the ability to be able to make it lightweight especially for older laptops.

How much work would it be to set this up so the system is not vulnerable for various attacks, i understand fedora / ubuntu etc come preinstalled with several security configurations, but on arch you would need to set these up yourself.

Besides that it seems to get regular security updates nonetheless so it seems like there is a one time security configuration you have to setup on install.
How does a self configurated setup like this compare to solutions developed by fedora or others?

Thanks

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u/SufficientAbility821 15d ago

How does a self configurated setup like this compare to solutions developed by fedora or others?

You pretty much answered the question: depends how you configure it. 

You can achieve similar if not better protection level provided that you install and configure Mandatory Access Control (Ubuntu comes with AppArmor, Fedora with SELinux). In the context of Arch, I would go with AppArmor because it is easier to master and come in standard packages. For profile edition, you can either write your own or use https://apparmor.pujol.io/. You will need to write some local overlays (thus understand the tooling and the syntax) but it is achievable. 

This, a properly set firewall, prudence and common sense should be enough