MySQL 5 & Shared Hosting Security
Sep 10, 2007
MySQL 5.0 supports stored procedures -- but is it safe to allow shared hosting customers to have privileges to create them? If the procedures are global, does that mean that:
a) one customer could write a procedure which accessed another customer's data?
b) any customer could call a procedure created by a different customer?
c) any customer could override an existing mysql function in a way that would affect other customers?
d) any customer could write a function that bound to a system library and crash the entire server instance?
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Nov 18, 2008
I'm a web designer trying to find a web host for a client. I've set up several clients, including the one in question, at IX and haven't had a problem until the other day, when my client's site was hacked. A redirect code was inserted, taking the user to a false site that installed a virus. The offending code was removed by IX but the client's experience with their tech support was less than satisfactory. I've seen similar stories on this forum and others.
I'm looking to find another host and have some questions about security on shared hosting plans. I understand that they're not completely secure but I'm wondering if certain hosts or certain servers are more susceptible to hacks than others? I see very little, if any, mention of security on sites of hosts offering low-cost, shared hosting plans.
Fewer low-cost hosts seem to be offering dedicated IP addresses. Is a shared IP address going to be less secure than a dedicated one?
My client's site is info only -- no ecommerce or user login -- so it doesn't have to be Fort Knox, but they shouldn't have to worry about it being hijacked either.
Lots of questions, I know. It's my first time posting on this forum, so be gentle.
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May 26, 2009
I am in a shared hosting environment. Their php's setting does not have open_basedir set and safe_mode is off.
I was poking around their server and noticed that using some simple system() calls within a php script, I was able to access /etc/passwd and therefore access all their client's public_html.
I am currently calling them to let them know of the vulnerability. But out of curiosity, is it normal that I can read all the other site hosted? They do have config files with mysql pasword in it.
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May 10, 2008
I've been reading these forums for a while now... a lot of very interesting and useful stuff. However, I've always been happy with the hosting of my site until recently, and have never had a pressing reason for wanting to change.
However, I recently had a four day outage to my site. The hosting company (which shall remain nameless, for now) put this down to a security problem which meant they had to take down the shared Windows server and go through all the sites on the server looking for the site that had bad code which caused the security outage. I also has problems with malicious javascript being injected into my pages prior to this.
I quote from the hosting company "Unfortunately this is a shared hosting solution and by its very nature, it means that poor code affects all sites on that web server. .... The vulnerabilities of ASP, MS-SQL and .Net are well documented." They then proceeded to try to sell me a dedicated server (which I believe will likely be too expensive for my needs).
I'm no expert on hosting, but this doesn't sound right to me. Is all Windows shared hosting afflicted with these kinds of security problems? or only when it's not set up right? I need reliability, but not absolute 100% bulletproof uptime if it comes with a dedicated server pricetag. I do need to avoid outages of a number of hours/days (!!) however
Hopefully one of the experts here can put me right I can't believe that Windows hosting security is that bad that no company can have a shared hosting product that avoids the aforementioned problems. What do you think?
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May 29, 2007
Does anyone know of any shared hosting plans that don't have any MySQL limitations? Aplus.net and Powweb are trying to shut down my accounts because of this problem, and I can't afford dedicated hosting quite yet.
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Mar 27, 2008
Does anyone have an opinion on the performance of XO's shared web hosting solution when you're using their built-in MySQL capability with PHP coding?
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Jan 14, 2009
I'm working with a non-profit and we're looking for an inexpensive hosting but we also need to be able to access MYSQL (port 3306) through the internet.
We use Crystal Reports and need to get to the database directly for reports.
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Jun 7, 2008
I'm going to be rolling out a php/mysql driven site soon and I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that the mysql performance dreamhost has given me isn't going to cut it, its probably too oversold. Simple one table one column selects can take 30 seconds or time out depending on how badly the server is being hammered. HTTP requests are usually snappy, but the mysql performance is bogus.
What is a good host for me to launch this site with? Storage wouldn't need to be too terribly high, at least initially. I'm tempted by MediaTemple's slick marketing, but I've seen on here that some people have had poor sql performance (contrary to what some personal friends have experienced, so I'm torn). I was reading about downtownhost on here, but their load times seemed slow when I hit a couple domains listed on here that are hosted by them.
This host needs to be located in the US. Honestly, I like dreamhost and their panel, save for the sql sluggishness I'm getting.
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Mar 18, 2009
One of my friends uses a popular shared hosting provider, and I was assisting him with a web site issue earlier.
I noticed the following warning in the host's control panel:
"[MySQL databases] may not be used for log evaluation operations, ad clicks, chat systems, banner rotations, or similar applications putting extreme loads on the database under any circumstances."
Is this common at other shared hosts?
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Mar 17, 2008
Is 40 max_user_connections for MySql typical in a Shared Hosting environment? Or are there Shared Hosts out there that allow more than 40 max_user_connections per account?
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Nov 6, 2008
I have been working on quite a large project for the past few months, and have just thought of a new way to do something, so im just in the feasiblity stage of a particular component.
My question is, how secure is MySQL across a network, i.e. the internet.
Is the query string sent in plain text?
If so is there a way to secure MySQL commands over a network, so I can send "sensitive data"?
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Apr 23, 2009
I'm trying to find at least three web hosting companies to choose from to host a Joomla websites on a shared server. Would consider dedicated if the deal was right. I have a friend of mine who wants to create a church website, and is looking for the best deal. I use Netfirms which I have never had an issue with, but I didn't want to be bias, and would like give him other options to choose from.
Is there a good WebHosting Review site, I could check out, or maybe someone could recommend their top three. I reading threw the forums here and I noticed there are not that many complaints with Hostgator. Again, I just want to see if there was anything out there better.
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Apr 2, 2009
This question gets asked a lot in our Helpdesk and I figured I would post our knowledgebase article here to help anyone else wondering the Pros and Cons of Unlimited Domain Shared Hosting vs. Reseller Hosting. If anyone has anything else to add, I appreciate any feedback on how we can improve our KB article.
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Given the present state of shared hosting, many clients may ask "Why would I need a Reseller account if I can host unlimited Addon and Parked domains within a single shared hosting account?". There is certainly enough Disk Space and Bandwidth provided in many of today's hosting packages, so why bother to purchase a Reseller account?
Many don't realize the drawbacks of hosting large numbers of domains within a single hosting account until they've already packed tens of them onto a single package.
So how do you know whether a Reseller account or Shared Hosting account is right for you? The answer is in how you plan to provide access to others and how "mission-critical" the sites are. You should consider the following factors when deciding on hosting a large number of domains:
1. Who will be managing these sites?
2. How important is site security between sites?
3. Will these domains need dedicated SSLs?
4. How resource intensive will these sites be (RAM, CPU, MySQL)?
In a nutshell, Reseller plans are for those who wish to host websites for other sub-clients and a shared hosting package is for a single individual managing multiple personal domains. We'll go over the 4 points above in greater detail.
1. Who will be managing these site?
If you personally own multiple domains and wish to host them within the same hosting space, you can easily do so with an Addon or Parked domain. An addon domain will allow you to host a new domain within a subdirectory of your hosting space. A parked domain will allow you to have multiple domain names point to the same content. Since addon domains reside within the same user space as your main domain, you can manage all of your domains with a single login. You can see the problem if you want to provide another user with access. Since all accounts are managed with a single set of login credentials, if you give another user access to their addon domain you are also giving them access to your main domain. If you have vital information stored on your main domain and you are hosting another domain as an addon domain for someone else, you cannot provide them access to their hosting without compromising the integrity of your main domain.
When hosting sites as a Reseller, your clients in turn will want access to their account and will want exclusive rights to their disk space and server resources. With a Reseller account, each sub-account you create gets its own username, password, and isolated user space on the server. Individual clients of yours have access to their user space and their user space alone. In addition to the isolation with regards to access concerns, each account also gets their own cPanel access. All of the same great features that you use to manage your sites can also be given to your clients. Next time client Y wants to add an email account, you don't have to do it for them for fear of giving them access to your cPanel, you can simply give them their login details and they can manage their own email accounts.
2. How important is site security between sites?
This is along the same lines as point 1. This is not necessarily related to who you are hosting for, but what content you are hosting. Imagine that you are a webmaster and you are hosting your own personal site-in-a-box community forums (such as PHPBB or vBulliten) on your main domain and a company website for a paying client on an addon domain. It is not uncommon for popular scripts to have security flaws in older versions. Script authors will often update security flaws in later versions of their software. For this reason, it is very important to keep scripts up to date on your site. But let's assume you forget to update your scripts for a couple of months and an unscrupulous individual takes advantage of a well known security hole. Using this exploit, they gain access to your forums and any subdirectories. Since you are hosting another domain as an addon, they now have access to this domain's content as well. A site defacement on this company's site may not bode well for you when they are considering you for web master services in the future.
If these two domains had been separate into two individual users (i.e. two subaccounts created through a Reseller), their content would've been inherently isolated server side by Linux's user management. Sure, your forums still would've been affected by the security hole, but the break-in would've been isolated to your site alone.
Going back to our example, let's say that instead of a corporate website as an addon domain you are hosting an image gallery site for all of your cats. In this case, it may not be a big deal if a compromise in your main domain spreads to your addon domain. After all, they are both owned by you and you're only losing some time and effort to restore these sites from your local backups (which I'm sure you've actively maintained ). But then again, you are losing time and time is money. If these sites had been separated into individual users, again, you'd only have to restore one site's content.
The idea here is isolation. Reseller plans provide you with the peace of mind to know that if one of your users doesn't keep up with their site's content as actively as they should, their actions won't negatively impact the content hosted on other domains. If you and those you host in your addons are diligent webmasters, maybe this point won't have much bearing on your decision. Only you can say for sure.
3. Will these domains need SSLs?
As of this writing, SSL certificates must have a dedicated IP address to be installed. If you are hosting multiple domains on the same shared hosting package, you can still install an SSL (or purchase a dedicated IP address and install one) but you are limited to exactly one SSL on your account. If you are hosting multiple domains on the same package (and consequently the same IP), you must choose which domains gets to have the dedicated SSL.
Sub accounts of Resellers can each be placed onto separate IP addresses and, as a result, can each have their own dedicated SSL installed.
Of course, both shared accounts and Resellers' sub accounts can use the server's shared SSL free of charge. However, some clients prefer to see their domain in the URL bar when they visit https.
4. How resource intensive will these sites be (RAM, CPU, MySQL)?
We've already established that disk space and bandwidth will be no problem. But what about CPU, RAM, and MySQL resources?
It's important to be aware of the resource needs of your website. As administrators, we have to make sure all users "play nice" on the server. We can't have user X eating all of the CPU cycles computing pi to the trillionth decimal place while you are trying to serve web pages to your loyal visitors. We have to monitor the actions of all of our users and in the event someone is stepping beyond the bounds of acceptable resource consumption, we have to take action. In most cases, this entails disabling the abusive script, but in extreme cases we have to suspend the abusive user account to prevent other domains from encountering performance degradation on their sites.
If you are hosting 100 domains as addon domains, all serving nothing but static HTML pages, maybe you will stay off the radar.
But considering most sites are more complicated than static HTML, you may want to be aware of how many sites you host as addons and what content they serve. If you're hosting the latest and greatest Joomla modules, with up to date news feeds, integrated forums modules, polls, blog posts, etc your site can certainly require a degree of CPU to serve your pages. Now imagine you have 5 or 10 of these sites all hosted as addon domains. The resources these sites need to generate their content can quickly add up and before you know it you've got a friendly email from Acenet, Inc. in your inbox wondering why your user is consuming 2 of the 8 CPU cores on the server. That may be an exaggeration, but you get the idea. In the event your resource usage becomes so excessive that we have to suspend your user, now all of your sites are down instead of whichever one may be the direct cause of the spike in CPU, RAM, or MySQL consumption.
If each of these had been separate Reseller accounts, the offending account could've been suspended temporarily while we work through the cause, leaving the rest of your domains live and kicking.
The conclusion here is that you need to be aware of the needs of your sites in a general sense. Hosting unlimited domains within a shared hosting space is certainly a nice feature. For those webmasters who have multiple presences on the web, it's very convenient to be able to manage all of their personal domains from a single control panel. For those entrepreneurs who are hosting multiple domains for other individuals, the features and security associated with a Reseller plan and the inherent isolation of Linux users is a must have.
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Jul 31, 2014
I'have a problem with my aps setup on sanbox.When i create on customer ccp when i click finish i have this error. I must only test.
Error: Instance of application with id 124 and version '1-4' can not be provided: There is no resource of class 'Shared hosting Apache' with provisioning attributes 'Web Cluster' in subscription with id 1.:There is no resource of class 'Physical hosting (IIS)' with provisioning attributes 'Web Cluster' in subscription with id 1..If i add the shared hosting apache resourse i get this error : There are no "apache" services that satisfy given attributes: "Web Cluster".
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Apr 8, 2008
I am conducting some research into potential risks that web hosts have to deal with on a daily basis. What potential security risks are there for web hosts ? And how do they overcome these issues?
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Mar 24, 2007
I have hosting - php/apache - with Orchard Hosting, and I've been with them for many years and there's never been a problem.
Then, a couple of days ago I realised from my logs a text file had been put in a directory in my webspace without me knowing anything about it. I emailed my host and they said it could have happened by either:
1. someone using ftp and getting into my account
2. someone injecting PHP through a form on the site.
I've added some code to my validation to look for <? and fwrite keywords but I think it's secure! But in the logs, there's no visits to the pages where the forms are (one of which is AJAX powered) - so I'm not sure it's injection.
Is someone using some kind of anonymous connection to my FTP (which shoudn't work!) the most viable reason why this has happened?
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Jun 11, 2007
I have a server is running windows 2003 enterpirse as WEB HOSTING. It don'nt configure to become Domain Controller. Anyone advise me that Should I do if this server will attached by hacker, virus or OS error,damage?
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May 31, 2009
What is the standard number on maximum mysql connection on most shared host providers and which one give the highest number.
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Apr 16, 2009
I know there are a million "looking for cheap shared hosting" threads. Hopefully my particular values/interests justify a new one.
I'm a (mostly PHP/MySQL/CMS) web developer, using Dreamhost for years (perhaps DH was better back then) to host staging/development sites for clients (once I've developed a client site, I usually make them get their own host somewhere more reliable), as well as for low-traffic sites, transferring files, etc.
What I don't like about Dreamhost:
a) SLOW. my guess is this is 25% web server overselling, and 75% MySQL server overselling. My simple sites are tolerably slow - including lightweight php/mysql sites (textpattern CMS, etc.) - BUT my Drupal and Silverstripe and ZenCart experiments are intollerable (5+ second page loads).
b) funny ownership policies - I can't (easily) create a client FTP user that is restricted to one of my subfolders. Each user = exclusive file/folder ownership.
c) not much else. I seem to get a-little-too-frequent DNS problems/outages, and used to get a-little-too-frequent server lock-ups... but I don't expect perfection from a cheap host. And of course I send my mail through google apps, I wouldn't trust a cheap host with my mail.
What I like about Dreamhost:
a) the control panel functionality. Yes, it's ugly, but god it does a lot of nice stuff that cPanel doesn't (and frankly, cPanel is usually ugly too).
b) the usual: a very low price for unlimited domains, unlimited mySQL, and huge storage.
So, who is my next low-cost host?
a) Interested in MySQL performance/protection - perhaps hosts that put MySQL [and mail] on separate servers, like DH, but don't overload them!?! Do I need to worry about this?
b) I wouldn't mind moving to a reseller account
c) I'd like a progressive control panel; I have clients on medialayer - who use directadmin (nice) - but their pricing structure is a bit tight on domains/db/storage. [As an aside, medialayer provides excellent shared hosting performance/value/support, if you don't need a lot of domains/db/storage]
d) I'd like to stay in the $10-20ish a month range
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Apr 26, 2009
From some weeks I try to have a secure install for my Debian. THis server will be a shared hosting host so need special security but I don't know how to do this.
My requirement are :
- Apache
- PHP (mod, not cgi)
Actually, users can navigate into my server by using phpshell script. And someone put lots of file into /tmp directory so I tri to secure all of that but don't find good tuto for that; do you know where can i have some?
And what about php using cron so execute with php-cli how to secure it?
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Jan 20, 2008
About next week, I'll put a Linux box on the web.
Could anyone suggest what kind of security measures I could implement?
Iptables:
- Protect against DDos?
- Protect against certain worms?
- Protect against flooding?
Services:
- Protect against constant dictionary attacks based on ports?
Pretty much any experience you could put down in this thread would be invaluable.
Also mod, if this shouldnt be here. Feel free to move, Im not sure where it should go!
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Dec 15, 2008
I have read many helpful feedbacks regarding choosing a reliable web host. Most of the concerns are centered around costs. However, I am more particular about the relative security of my website in addition to other perks such as space, speed and bandwidth. I rate my concerns on a 1-10 scale:
Security 9/10
Bandwidth 7.5/10
Disk space 6/10
E-mails, backups, etc: 8/10
Cost: 7/10
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Jul 19, 2007
Which methods is need to protect a hosting server?
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Jul 13, 2005
I am developing a website for a client of mine (the client is a close friend and know's that he is getting a newbie). This site will be larger (project wise) than anything that I have ever done (everything I have done in the past has been FrontPage). We will be using several third party applications that need to run on the server as well as our own custom developed applications. We do not yet know how much access to the server's deeper structures we will need for all of the applications that we want loaded on our server to run. Things we have in mind: oscommerce, mysql, php5, apache, linux, vbulletin, blogger, phpbb, adserver, ect... Would these things run ok on a shared host and would I have full authority to configure them without needing full access to the server? Or will I need access to the entire server (dedicated server) in order to have full customization capabilities? I guess all I am trying to figure out at this point is will shared hosting for a large project limit our abilities to use 3rd party apps, or do most 3rd party application designers build their stuff to work in a shared hosting environment anyway? If we need to get a dedicated server we will, but if we can get away with shared hosting for a while (especially during development when the site will not be generating revenue) it would be nice to avoid the price of a dedicated server. Many thanks for your comments, insight, and expertise! Also, if anyone can sight some common scenarios that may require a dedicated server over a shared hosting plan, that may help me to understand what the limitations of a shared hosting plan vs. a deicated or virtual dedicated server are.
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Aug 17, 2008
Here is my dilemma, thanks to a thread in these forums I was directed to a hosting website called pc-core.net and I was interested in using them, because it does not appear that they oversell at all. My question is regarding the fact that they have the shared hosting for $12/month with ~5gb of disk space and 50gb of transfer. I then just looked at reseller hosting for the heck of it, and noticed i could get a reseller hosting account with 45gb storage and 450gb of bandwidth for $10/month. Even though I wont be selling hosting, or anything like that, can I use a reseller hosting account like a normal shared hosting account?...just with more space and bandwidth?
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Jun 13, 2008
I'm new to the VPS scene, so could someone tell me the difference between VPS and say shared hosting or dedicated hosting? Actually I really like to know what a Virtual Private Server actually is.. I know shared hosting is typically a single account on a server with several hundred other accounts which is used primarily for the sole purpose of hosting websites, and I know that dedicated hosting is functionally the same as colo except that you rent the server, instead of having your own purchased server plugged into some network. So what is VPS?
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May 6, 2008
Do website builders generally go with shared hosting or dedicated server? I mean, if they work on several websites would they get a dedicated server instead of shared? From what I understand through reading shared hosting is basically if you only have one website. So one with multiple websites would go with a dedicated server?
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Apr 23, 2008
I would like to know the different between the shared hosting and reseller hosting?
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Sep 26, 2007
Just wondering if mysql load balancing is possible in a shared environment.
Example:
I have 3 shared accounts. On one server, I have the write and the 2nd and 3rd server I have the read (select). Or vice versa .. Would it be possible to create a php script to perform this function?
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Nov 6, 2008
I never did replication and do not know much about it so I figured I would ask here if anyone knows or has done it before like this.
I have a user who wants me to enable replication on my server for his user. I dont like the sounds of it on a shared environment but if there is no risk to other users and its not a big resource hog I will do it. Anyway, from what I gather I have to:
1. execute:
GRANT REPLICATION SLAVE ON user_main.* TO 'repl'@'ip-here' IDENTIFIED BY '4T6WjUZa';
[url]
2. Stop mysql server and Add in my.cnf:
[mysqld]
log-bin=mysql-bin
server-id=1
slave-compressed=1
binlog-do-db=user_main
start server[url]
3. execute:
SHOW MASTER STATUS;
we need values of colomns File and Position from output of above command[url]
So my questions are:
Is there any security risk?
Is there significant extra resource usage?
Is this even done on shared environments?
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