On Sun 22 Nov 2009 07:34:52 AM IST, abhishek jain
<[email protected]> wrote:
> Thanks for the reply,
> I know quite a bit on Apache, my question is  what are the precautions i
> need to take to create a secured shared hosting environment. By that i mean
> how to limit the number of emails one can send and how to create a kind of
> system where the users of the server are not able to read the files of the
> other users. I know we have control panels like Cpanel which does the task
> but i need to do that on myself to save money.

For a CPanel replacement you can try out ISPConfig. It maybe helpful to
see what all options it provides and accordingly implement it on your own.

You can search the net for best practices in setting up a hosting
environment. Some pointers would include

- securing a PHP/Apache setup (safe mode, PHP SuExec), noexec fstab
parameters on your partitions such as /tmp, /home, /var/www so that
shell scripts cannot execute from there
- .htaccess restrictions - what if a user FTP account is compromised and
the malicious user installs a number of .htaccess parameters to exploit
your server such as sending out spam
- FTP setup and chroot the users
- mail server setup in a chroot along with smtp authentication being
mandatory and disallowing mails to outside domains without
authentication, even if they're from 127.0.0.1
- database server restrictions and allowing only limited privileges to a
 user
- If you plan to use PHP, then PHP based third party applications can
create havoc if they are not updated regularly. If you use PhpMyAdmin,
put it in a path which is not easily guessable. Same goes for webmail
apps such as roundcube. Design your "contact us" forms on the website
in a way that the spammer cannot exploit them. Avoid mail() functions.

Spend time on doing extensive research on securing each application type
(web, db, mail, ftp, im, voip etc.) and you would be comparatively safe.

-- 
Best Regards
Vivek Kapoor
http://exain.com

_______________________________________________
ilugd mailinglist -- [email protected]
http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd
Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi 
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/

Reply via email to