Essential software for new systems

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Automaattinen sisällysluettelo / Automatically generated Table of Contents

Security

microcode - propietary, but otherwise CPU holes are going to be gaping open. Refer to tail -n +1 /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*
- Debian calls this as amd64-microcode or intel-microcode
ufw for Deb-based or firewalld on Fedora
sshguard for mitigating shared systems where others refuse to use keys
needrestart for knowing when updates actually require services to be restarted or a kernel upgrade happens and requires reboot
molly-guard so you won’t accidentally reboot or poweroff production rather than local machine.
apt-listchanges changelogs are worth knowing when updating.
apt-listbugs known bugs are especially nice when performing bigger updates.
chrony - security demands the time to be correct, Chrony supports NTS and is proper NTP server instead of just SNTP like systemd-timesyncd.
- alternatively configure systemd-timesyncd
unbound - my choice for both DNSSEC validating and DNS-over-TLS, even if I had it connect to upstream dns[crypt]proxy
- alternatively configure systemd-resolved. Simultaneously systemd-networkd may be a good idea.
unattended-upgrades or dnf-automatic so security updates are at least downloaded if not even directly installed (see configuration and systemd units!)
- if dnf-automatic, consider sudo systemctl enable dnf-automatic-install.{timer,service} or at least sudo systemctl enable dnf-automatic-download.{timer,service}

nvim git tmux zsh - good luck without these
if cryptographic operations are taking ages, consider something like haveged. It’s controversial, so if there are no issues, don’t install a random number generator.
userspace oom killer, may avoid frozen systems, much more pleasant than actually having to deal with a frozen system.
- earlyoom
  - remember to sudo systemctl enable --now earlyoom
- systemd-oomd
  - remember to sudo systemctl enable --now systemd-oomd
zram-tools - small compressed swap in RAM
- Remember to check configs! Fedora: /etc/zram.conf
- sudo systemctl enable --now zramswap.service zram-swap.service
thermald for additional help keeping system cool, especially intel
- sudo systemctl enable --now thermald
vnstat - help for observing bandwidth usage
yggdrasil - essential for getting through Carrier Grade NAT whether there is IPv6 or not. Also gives static internal IPv6 reducing need for dynamic DNS.
tlp - for laptop power management, especially ThinkPad.
- sudo tlp-stat | less
- sudo systemctl enable --now tlp

This is just too close to not mention here (and was besides in my planning issue):

sudo systemctl enable --now fstrim.timer
check that /etc/fstab has noatime so every file access isn’t written to the disk. BTRFS filesystems should also have ssd flag.
- NEVER ENABLE atime, relatime or norelatime under the threat of suffering especially on BTRFS. I have been doing fine without it for years, it will not help any issue, unless you want read operations to cause writes and eat space…