Introduction to Security Services

To maintain the security of its computing environment, the Solaris operating environment software provides the following features:

• Machine Security – The ability to protect machine resources and files from malicious modification or unintentional modification by users or intruders

• Authentication – The ability to securely identify a user, which requires the user's name and some form of proof, typically a password

• Secure Communication – The ability to ensure that authenticated parties can communicate without interception, modification, or spoofing

• Auditing – The ability to identify the source of security changes to the system, including file access, security-related system calls, and authentication failures

For a general discussion of system security, see Chapter 2, Managing Machine Security (Overview).