• Small and clean server distribution:

The primary focus of TSL is a “Keep it simple” distribution which meets all the enterprise needs without superfluous packages which hinder easy installation on your machine.

• No surprises
  

Surprises are usually bad when it comes to system administration. In TSL, we go out of our way to make sure there are none and that you, the systems administrator, is the one in charge. We provide the tools, you use them as you see fit.

• Stable

Trustix Secure Linux has been designed with the two goals of stability and security as top priorities. TSL features a stable enterprise-grade operating system which can run for years with little or no hassle for the administrator. Because of its unrivalled stability, it is ideal for high-performance computing environments. We guarantee that your machines will be up for months at a time without a crash or need for rebooting.

• Stack Protected
  

In line with its mission to produce the most secure distribution of Linux available, Trustix Secure Linux now incorporates IBM stack protection. This technology is of particular importance to enterprise server deployments where safeguarding data is of paramount concern.

Extending the Stackguard compiler, Stack Protection defends systems from buffer overflows by inserting protection code into an application at the point of compilation.

It detects and defeats stack smashing attacks by protecting the return address on the stack from being altered. The ``XOR Random canary'' method places the xor value of the return address and a random number next to the return address when a function is called and then checks that the value is preserved before the function returns.

This delivers effective buffer overflow detection and avoids the corruption of pointers by re-ordering local variables to place buffers after pointers.

Such protection is achieved with miniscule performance overhead whilst producing programs that are inherently hardened against Stack Smashing Attacks.

• Easy to install

TSL is user-friendly and the VIPER installer makes it easy to install on your machine, even if you are not a Linux expert. Features like hardware detection and configuration, a nice interface for selecting what to install and how to configure it, make the installation process a very easy one.

• Easy updates

SWUP, the Trustix SoftWare UPdater, provides a convenient and secure way of keeping your system updated with the latest security patches as well as a host of other functionality. SWUP is an extension for existing software packaging systems to facilitate automatic and secure update and install. SWUP handles dependencies between software packages, and is able to fetch additional required software during install or upgrade.

• Updated installation media

The TSL media has since day one been kept up to date with the latest fixes. This saves you from downloading the additional 70MB of updates once your system is done installing and gets you up and running fast.

• Well maintained

The Trustix team takes great pride in being among the first to fix security holes and we cooperate with a number of other vendors and organizations to give you the best possible service.

• Active TSL community

The TSL community lives on the TSL mailing lists. It consists of a number of skilled people in addition to the TSL developers.