[svlug] Avoiding Windows cooties

[Skip Evans]

Hey all,

As I've said before, but just to be clear, we are a 
PHP/MySQL development shop and pretty much use 
fBSD/Linux for servers and workstations 
respectively, and so far have had only one Windows 
machine on the network for IE testing.

However, it's only really used to connect via HTTP 
to development sites on the servers and we've never 
set up Samba or any other way (not that I know of 
any others) for it to mount the server drives, etc.

I haven't bothered doing this because there hasn't 
really been a dire need (ftp'ing stuff to it or from 
it has sufficed for what little movement of files 
required to date) and I've always thought that 
keeping it off the server's drives might help avoid 
it spreading any Windows cooties around the network.

First, am I right in assuming that not letting it 
Samba to other machines is at least some small 
protection from it placing infected files on the 
*Nix machines?

I do update the virus protection software on it when 
it says to do so, but frankly, it gets so little use 
and I so much prefer to work on my Linux workstation 
that I am not up on the latest Windows viruses and 
their protective software.

Secondly, it looks like now we're going to have to 
get another Windows machine and Samba it up (or some 
other way) because we will soon be developing 
projects using Flash 8 for forms and communicating 
with PHP on the server side and our design guy is 
going to be more affective if he can save files 
directly to dev sites instead of having to FTP 
everything.

So I guess the first thing I need to do is research 
a little about once I do install Samba on the 
servers, what resources are there for protecting the 
servers from Windows cooties infected files, or if 
there is anything to be done.

I'm pretty green here, so any resources you may know 
to point me to would be greatly appreciated.

Right now I'm just Googling around a bit for Samba 
and trying to spot pages that might touch upon my 
question, but so far haven't found anything truly 
relevant, but I'm just getting started and was 
thinking maybe some of you may know a more direct 
path to docs pertaining to this issue.

Thanks!
-- 
Skip Evans
Big Sky Penguin, LLC
61 W Broadway
Butte, Montana 59701
406-782-2240

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