Thanks to all who responded to my query with the very helpful information. I went to the City Council meeting loaded for bear, but it turned out to be unnecessary. I gave our library director a list of anti-virus programs available for Linux and he passed it on to the councilman in question, along with the promise we would install one. That appears to have been sufficient to appease him. Our agenda item remained part of the consent agenda and it passed without question. Today we begin the process of getting Koha on board as our ILS. I would love to just run it on a Linux server, but alas the virtual machine on a Microsoft platform was a necessary compromise to get our IT department on board during the RFP process. We may have been able to win that battle, but it would have definitely been a battle, since all RFP must be approved by the Finance Director, and IT is (oddly) in the finance department. Thanks again for all the help. --Jim Maroon On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 12:43 PM, Buster <storypage@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello, all.
We have selected Koha for our ILS and plan to run it in a virtual machine on a Windows server. The contract goes before our City Council tomorrow night. It is on the consent agenda, which means it will be voted on along with a slew of other measures. There is no debate, just up or down vote, unless a councilman has a concern.
A councilman has a concern.
He is the former head of our IT department, is a Windows guy, and dislikes and distrusts anything Linux. His specific concern is security. Namely, he is worried someone can hack into our system and steal patron information. He is also concerned about mal-ware in general and wants us to install antivirus software on it.
So I guess my questions are, how do I answer the patron information concern, and how do I answer the malware concern? How do the rest of you handle Linux security concerns? What antivirus software do you use and from whence do you get it?
Please explain it to me in a way even a Windows guy with zero understanding of Linux will understand it.
Thanks in advance, Jim Maroon
-- ================================================== "The man, who, by his own and his family's labour, can provide a sufficiency of food and raiment and a comfortable dwelling place, is not a poor man."--William Cobbett, *Cottage Economy*, 1826.