I have a friend that works in the IT. He is about to start his own business, something in the line of network connection or something like that. I was telling him that I'm planning on getting my own dedicated server but that I have no idea how to secure the server. He told me that most linux desitributions come with their own build in firewall and that I don't need to worry about security. He told me to just ask my dedicated server provider to make sure the firewall is enabled and that's it. When he told me that I thought to myself, either this guy has no idea what he's talking about, or those guys at Webhostingtalk have no idea what they are talking about!
my server hacked for tow time in less than one month (both times they were similar to each other), and my previous securing company work on my server in previous hack but the server hack again!
anybody can work on my server? this is very URGENT because my server and all of our sites are down!
so while we all obsess over hardening our servers against sophisticated hacking attempts, how many of us consider the security of our own host's control panel?
Just today i'd forgotten my login for my host's helpdesk. I couldn't find their password recovery form, so i opened their public support chat and asked support for a link to their password recovery form. Apparently they didn't have a password recovery form. Here is the chat transcript:
Support: Hello Tom: Hi, where is your password recovery form for the helpdesk? Support: How may i help you? Tom: Did you see my message? Support: Yes Support: Let me know your email address Tom: [REMOVED] Support: Okay Let me check Support: Your new password is [REMOVED]
So, the only think really stopping someone from logging into my helpdesk and posting a server cancellation ticket is a little bit of research to find my email address and a traceroute to find my host.
I see that one of the most important things nowadays is the security of our servers.
I would like to know from people here that are running big and small servers what they have done to secure their servers. What tips, what softwares they have used, which applications using and are more secure than others.. generally everything that could make good in the protection and security of our servers.
Even if you asked helped from a company doing that work, what changes they have done to your servers? which options they changed?
I am making this thread so as to collect all info we know in one place.. One knows about that tip.. the other one knows another tip.. having all of them somewhere could make a tremendous difference..
Moderators please dont move that thread in any software discussion or other forum as this is one of the most active ones and also has instant relation with the dedicated servers we buy.
I came across this very detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to secure a Plesk based VPS. It's up-to-date and was just written so the info is accurate.
I have a cPanel dedicated server and have a lot of spam attacks on this server. It's getting so bad that our IP is being added to Yahoo & AOL blacklists and my emails are bouncing to these accounts.
Is there anyone on here who can do a thourough check on our server and install anything necessary to stop this kind of activity?
For hosting irc and shells i heard that the best choice for OS is the FreeBSD..
I would like to know if there are any toturials or if someone can write one.. (or give some tips) of how can i secure a machine running FreeBSD and used for irc + shells!
For example how can i install a firewall, a rootkit etc etc..
Also what about putting users at jail? (not allowing them see other dirs except theirs) how can i do that?
Also what about dont allow users use some commands like dmesg, ping, traceroute, and also how can i make them when they do ps -aux to only see their processes (to not be able see the other processes from other users..)
I'm thinking about creating a limited platform for my employees to access my hosting servers
I wish they can create certain types of directories for users, set permissions on some directories, list users accounts, etc.
but although I don't think they would want to abuse this kind of access, I not only like the Trust-No-One premisse, but I also find it not very unlikely that the computer they're using get compromised or something like that
so I'd like to get technical ideas on how to develop this system and to know if anyone is interested and would like to contribute to the code
what I've considered so far is that I should either create a special user for that which would be on all users group, or should give it "root" access... the latter seems more reasonable for me considering the implementation and compatibility between systems and control panels
but with "root" access I mean "running MY INTERFACE to the employee as root"... this interface would have limited options like "create directory for user X", "list content of user X", etc. (taking a lot of care on input validation)... and would enforce some limits to prevent abuse (for example, can't list the content of more than 10 users per hour, or something like that... and alert me)
my main doubt is how you think that should be implemented? as a special server or as a webservice? with webservice I have the advantage of being capable of using SSL in a simple way and I don't need a special client (since any browser is a client) then that could be PHP or Perl... but running as UID 0 (I don't even know if apache allows that, or if there's a workaround like SUID)
I am seeking a little input from others who use multi-CPU machines with large memory as web servers and mysql servers.
I will be more than happy to give additional information I might have overlooked if you need it. Just ask.
We are starting to run more and more dedicated hosts running joomla applications. I've been trying to find the very best settings for both performance and security that I can for the servers to function well specifically with their joomla applications.
Serves are not used for *anything* else at all.
The servers are strictly used to serve up web pages. No need for anything other than what apache/php, joomla requires and a few other things such as ffmpeg, etc.
I would like to remove all tools which aren't needed for such a server, leaving a bare minimum server which is less susceptible to hacking.
I've never messed with the root account so wonder if I can simply not allow any access as root other than terminal, perhaps not even su by giving another account full root access and of course, while allowing the system to continue to function properly with the many things which must run as root.
I would like to do this on all of my public machines which are of course behind firewalls. I also have load balancers and cache devices in front of the web servers but at this time, they are not activated so aren't in the realm of this question.
Development is done in a separate environment and the data is pushed to the web server via private network to the web servers. This means no need for shared tools, FTP, or anything else which users would need in a shared environment.
The servers are 8-way IBM, running linux and apache, php/APC. Servers have 32GB of memory and I can install up to 64GB.
Databases are run on separate machines which are also dedicated only to running mysql databases. Same machines as above.
Machines all run multiple network cards bonded as a single IP.
So, my questions are;
How can I best utilize my hardware to take advantage of their memory capacities.
For example, on the web servers, I'd like to find the best settings for httpd.conf which takes advantage of the machines resources.
On MySQL servers, I'd like to do the same as the above, taking the best advantage of the hardware/memory.
For web serving and for joomla, I seek the very best security settings I can possibly get. I say best because since they aren't used by users, there is no need to have a lot of tools and access to these machines so it should not be a problem to tighten these machines up a great deal.
Any input from those who have such experiences would be very welcome as I've been finding no one place for help on this.
I have a small reseller account but all the domains are managed by myself. Security has not been a problem because the sites are simple, but now I have a need to deliver and recieve private files. I know how to keep the website itself secure writing my own sessions, using explicit variables, storing sensitive data outside of the web directories and that sort of stuff but it is my 'neighbors' that bother me. If one of them gets hacked or I get a bad neighbor sharing the server I do not want them to have access to my files and passwords.
A few years ago I wrote a browsing script that I found out had the ability to escape my own area and roam freely around every area on the server with unlimited access to every file. When I complained about it, the server admin said that I had nothing to worry about. When I pressed the issue I was told that nobody could invade my files because it was against the rules to go into other people's account. It turned out most server administrators left things open to eliminate scripting problems for their users and there was really no way to lock down a server without breaking a lot of scripts. At the time I moved to a more secure server but they eventually opened things up because of too many complaints and help requests.
Have things changed? Have they worked out the issues with shared servers? Is there a way to tell if my host has implemented proper safeguards (if any viable ones exist)?
i have vps and i enable the safe_mode , but now i need to turn it off becouse i need to install image uploader script and this script need safe mode off to work
so,
what can i do to secure my server while i turn off my safe mode?
I'm trying to find a good hosting provider to host our company's website as our fallback option in case of disaster. One or two dedicated servers should do it, but it'll need the space/bandwidth to host a database of around 60-80 gigs, with the ability to rsync newer copies of the database on a regular basis. We also need to store a Tomcat website, which will take up much less space, but also need to be rsynced to be kept up to date on a regular basis, though less often than
Also, we probably need Red Hat Linux specifically, as opposed to other flavors of Linux.
Of course we need root access to install the other apps we'll need. My paramount concern is the security of our companies data, much of which not only has to be protected for our companies sake, but also for laws such as HIPAA, etc. Cost is a consideration, but security, dependability, and flexibility (root access to our machine, ability to rsync between sites) is more important.
I was wondering if anyone's got suggestions for me, hosting providers they've liked for these purposes? I'm looking at Media Temple's dpv Nitro option right now ...
I'm working on a research study at the University of Toronto and we would like to set up a website and dedicated secure server. I would like some recommendations on start packages that would be appropriate with prices. I'm hoping some could over their own experiences.
Every time i use Dovecot secure IMAP server with Sieve support.I can not receive emails note. Upgraded from 11.5 to 12
Jun 18 08:03:36 CO6302 postfix/qmgr[1523]: 284FAA0E86: from=<my@gmail.com>, size=1943, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Jun 18 08:03:36 CO6302 postfix-local[2036]: postfix-local: from=my@gmail.com, to=the@domain.com, dirname=/var/qmail/mailnames Jun 18 08:03:36 CO6302 postfix/pipe[2035]: 284FAA0E86: to=<the@domain.com>, relay=plesk_virtual, delay=336, delays=335/0.01/0/0.19, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: lda: Error: user the@domain.com: Error reading configuration: Invalid settings: postmaster_address setting not given lda: Fatal: Internal error occurred. Refer to server log for more information. 4.2.1 Message can not be delivered at this time )
I have used the patch : [URL] .... to disable ssl v3.
After I applied the patch getting error below when i try to send email via horde webmail:
There was an error sending your message: Could not open secure TLS connection to the server.
Roundcube can send mails well but horde not. Otherwise since applied the parch i can't get mails from gmail and maybe other providers i don't know yet.
when I get a dedi server for shared hosting. I secure it as much as i can and then just incase I miss stuff etc I hire 2 other companys to check over everything. Since I bought a vps from fsckvps are there any guides to secure and optimize a vps other then the one located in the vps section? thanks. I Dont feel like spending 50+ dollars on securing a vps that costs less then 15 a month.
