Main Page: Difference between revisions
mNo edit summary |
mNo edit summary |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
25 years ago Linix Vserver started out as the first open source project to do Linux Virtualized Containers. We have now progressed beyond that now that it is a solved problem. Today Dec 18th, 2025, we are announcing our new journey into MDM Software (Mobile Device Management) with a specialty in Linux. However we will move into Windows & Apple Mac OS in the coming months. | |||
MDM Software or Mobile Device Management for Linux devices focusing on Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, and the long tail of distributions that usually get ignored by the big enterprise players. Thats where we can come in with out MDM software to help you. | |||
MDM Software or | Why MDM Software Matters (The Compliance Reality) | ||
Most companies start looking for MDM Software because they have to. You’re trying to pass a SOC 2 or ISO audit or you’ve got a HIPAA requirement. SOC 2 auditors don’t care that "Linux is secure by design." They want to see proof. They want a report showing every device has LUKS encryption enabled. They want to see that SSH keys are managed and that local user accounts aren't just a mess of "admin" and "test" passwords. | |||
If you don’t have a centralized tool, you’re stuck chasing people down asking them to send screenshots of their terminal to prove they updated their kernel. It’s a waste of time and it's not scalable. That is why we built our own custom MDM Solution. | |||
MDM is basically a "state enforcer" for hardware. You define what a "good" machine looks like—firewall on, disk encrypted, certain packages installed—and the software makes sure the laptop actually stays that way. If a dev decides to disable the firewall because they’re fighting a Docker networking issue and they forget to turn it back on, the MDM catches it. Without it, you’re just operating on hope. And hope doesn't pass audits. | |||
When do you actually do this? | |||
Ideally, you do this before you hit 20 employees. Once you have 50 people with laptops and no central management, you’ve already lost the battle. You’ll spend three months trying to retroactively install agents and fixing broken dependencies because everyone has a different version of Python or some weird custom kernel they compiled themselves. Do it early. Even if you only have five people, get them enrolled. It’s easier to grow into a system than to force-feed it to a bunch of senior engineers who think they know better than the IT department. | |||
How it’s actually done (The technical bit) | |||
It usually starts with an agent. We’ve seen web-based management, but for Linux, you need something that talks to the system D or the init system directly. You push out a configuration profile. On macOS, this is done through Apple's specific MDM protocol; on Linux, we’re often dealing with custom scripts or configuration management tools (think Ansible or Salt) wrapped in a management layer. You need to be able to remotely wipe a device. That’s the big one. If a laptop gets left in an Uber, you need to know that data is gone. Not "I think I encrypted it," but "I clicked a button and the keys are shredded." | |||
The common mistakes | |||
People try to over-manage. They treat a developer’s laptop like a locked-down kiosk in a bank. Don't do that. If you block every sudo command, your devs will find a way to bypass your MDM entirely, or they’ll just quit. The goal is guardrails, not handcuffs. | |||
Another mistake: ignoring the "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) mess. If someone is accessing production servers from a personal Mint install that hasn't seen a security patch since 2022, your enterprise MDM on the company laptops is useless. You have to draw a hard line. Either the device is managed, or it doesn't touch the data. | |||
What happens if you mess this up? | |||
If you don't do this correctly, or you just skip it, you end up with "Shadow IT." This is where the IT department thinks everything is fine, but in reality, half the fleet is running unpatched vulnerabilities. When the breach happens—and it’s usually something stupid like an outdated browser or a leaked SSH key on an unencrypted drive—you won't even have the logs to see how it happened. You'll be sitting there during the post-mortem with zero visibility into the hardware that caused the leak. | |||
If you | We're moving into Windows and Mac because businesses are heterogeneous. Nobody is 100% Linux, much as we might wish they were. You need one pane of glass. If you're jumping between three different consoles to see if your fleet is secure, you're going to miss something. We're fixing that. We're taking what we learned from 25 years of virtualization and containers and applying that same rigor to the physical devices in your employees' hands. It's about control, but more importantly, it's about proof. Clear, documented, unarguable proof that your devices are doing what they are supposed to do. | ||
Revision as of 22:43, 18 December 2025
25 years ago Linix Vserver started out as the first open source project to do Linux Virtualized Containers. We have now progressed beyond that now that it is a solved problem. Today Dec 18th, 2025, we are announcing our new journey into MDM Software (Mobile Device Management) with a specialty in Linux. However we will move into Windows & Apple Mac OS in the coming months.
MDM Software or Mobile Device Management for Linux devices focusing on Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, and the long tail of distributions that usually get ignored by the big enterprise players. Thats where we can come in with out MDM software to help you.
Why MDM Software Matters (The Compliance Reality)
Most companies start looking for MDM Software because they have to. You’re trying to pass a SOC 2 or ISO audit or you’ve got a HIPAA requirement. SOC 2 auditors don’t care that "Linux is secure by design." They want to see proof. They want a report showing every device has LUKS encryption enabled. They want to see that SSH keys are managed and that local user accounts aren't just a mess of "admin" and "test" passwords.
If you don’t have a centralized tool, you’re stuck chasing people down asking them to send screenshots of their terminal to prove they updated their kernel. It’s a waste of time and it's not scalable. That is why we built our own custom MDM Solution.
MDM is basically a "state enforcer" for hardware. You define what a "good" machine looks like—firewall on, disk encrypted, certain packages installed—and the software makes sure the laptop actually stays that way. If a dev decides to disable the firewall because they’re fighting a Docker networking issue and they forget to turn it back on, the MDM catches it. Without it, you’re just operating on hope. And hope doesn't pass audits.
When do you actually do this?
Ideally, you do this before you hit 20 employees. Once you have 50 people with laptops and no central management, you’ve already lost the battle. You’ll spend three months trying to retroactively install agents and fixing broken dependencies because everyone has a different version of Python or some weird custom kernel they compiled themselves. Do it early. Even if you only have five people, get them enrolled. It’s easier to grow into a system than to force-feed it to a bunch of senior engineers who think they know better than the IT department.
How it’s actually done (The technical bit)
It usually starts with an agent. We’ve seen web-based management, but for Linux, you need something that talks to the system D or the init system directly. You push out a configuration profile. On macOS, this is done through Apple's specific MDM protocol; on Linux, we’re often dealing with custom scripts or configuration management tools (think Ansible or Salt) wrapped in a management layer. You need to be able to remotely wipe a device. That’s the big one. If a laptop gets left in an Uber, you need to know that data is gone. Not "I think I encrypted it," but "I clicked a button and the keys are shredded."
The common mistakes
People try to over-manage. They treat a developer’s laptop like a locked-down kiosk in a bank. Don't do that. If you block every sudo command, your devs will find a way to bypass your MDM entirely, or they’ll just quit. The goal is guardrails, not handcuffs.
Another mistake: ignoring the "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) mess. If someone is accessing production servers from a personal Mint install that hasn't seen a security patch since 2022, your enterprise MDM on the company laptops is useless. You have to draw a hard line. Either the device is managed, or it doesn't touch the data.
What happens if you mess this up?
If you don't do this correctly, or you just skip it, you end up with "Shadow IT." This is where the IT department thinks everything is fine, but in reality, half the fleet is running unpatched vulnerabilities. When the breach happens—and it’s usually something stupid like an outdated browser or a leaked SSH key on an unencrypted drive—you won't even have the logs to see how it happened. You'll be sitting there during the post-mortem with zero visibility into the hardware that caused the leak.
We're moving into Windows and Mac because businesses are heterogeneous. Nobody is 100% Linux, much as we might wish they were. You need one pane of glass. If you're jumping between three different consoles to see if your fleet is secure, you're going to miss something. We're fixing that. We're taking what we learned from 25 years of virtualization and containers and applying that same rigor to the physical devices in your employees' hands. It's about control, but more importantly, it's about proof. Clear, documented, unarguable proof that your devices are doing what they are supposed to do.