Chapter 6. Software Maintenance
Software maintenance is extremely important to maintaining a secure system. It is vital to patch software as soon as it becomes available in order to prevent attackers from using known holes to infiltrate your system.
6.1. Install Minimal Software
It is a recommended practice to install only the packages you will use because each piece of software on your computer could possibly contain a vulnerability. If you are installing from the DVD media take the opportunity to select exactly what packages you want to install during the installation. When you find you need another package, you can always add it to the system later.
For more information on minimal installation, see the "Package Group Selection" section of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Installation Guide. A minimal installation can also be performed via a kickstart file using the
--nobase option. For more information, see the "Package Selection" section of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Installation Guide.
