Do I need a firewall and or Virus protection software

Question

Having build my Ubuntu Pc and loaded TOR, it is now running very nicely as a Node. This is within my home network. The Node has got an IP static address, so it won't fail to get back as a Node if I have for any reason to shut it down. I intend to have the power supply via APC, so if I get a power outage the Tor server will not be affected. Like wise the ISP Hub so its always on the NET. I do have virus protection AVG on my main PC with the Firewall attachments. I will not be using the TOR relay for anything else , no email, no IRC etc. The question - Does my TOR Relay need a separate firewall and or Virus protection. If so what is recommended please.

Thank you for this,when your trying to understand a new system without anyone to talk to. I will keep persevering.

Have followed your instructions and find that ufw is already installed and running.

I then ran the 'sudo apt install unattended-upgrades' it told me that the unattended-upgrades is already the newest version and that i could use the 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove some items that are no longer required. all done and uptodate , thanks again

Answer 1

Ubuntu comes with a firewall, called ufw (Uncomplicated Firewall) which should suffice, it is a front end to the Linux iptables packet filter.

To enable it:

sudo ufw allow 9001/tcp #change 9001 to your chosen ORPort
sudo ufw allow 22/tcp #if you remotely administrate with ssh
sudo ufw enable

You may need to add additional lines if there are other services that it's running that need to be accessible from the network.

I'd recommend against using any "antivirus" because it's mostly snakeoil and the offerings for Linux aren't very good and are more likely to be a vulnerability than an improvement in security.

A much more useful step to take is to enable are automatic updates:

sudo apt install unattended-upgrades

This will provide more protection than antivirus.