Archive for Computer Technical Support

Important Terms Within the Hosting Business – A

ActiveX

This is a control commonly used within Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser. They are very similar to applets in the way they behave as well as their functionalities; however, they give developers greater access to a client’s system – applets only provide developers with very limited access.

ADSL

ADSL stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscribers Line. It is similar to a DSL line, the only difference being that a number if dialled on connection with an ADSL connection.

Applets

These are very similar to ActiveX controls. Unline ActiveX controls they can be run in most browsers but provide developers with limited access to a client’s system as they are executed within a sandbox. They are normally written in the Java programming language.

ARPANET

ARPANET is a project which began in 1969 and was started by the Advanced Research Projects Agency with the aim of linking up 4 universities. The project became well known for being the start of the internet.

ASCII

ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is a data representation code used mainly by microcomputers and minicomputers.

ATM

ATM stands for Asynchronous Transfer Mode. It is a network configuration utilizing a single standard for data, video and audio that transfers information in short, fixed-length packets.

Access

Access is Microsoft’s advanced database creation and management software. It is popular among developers who maintain online databases with Windows NT.

Aliased Nameservers

Aliased nameservers are nameservers which are in the name of the client and not that of the hosting provider.

Apache

Apache is a free open source webserver widely used on the internet.

Application Hosting Service Provider

This is a third party provider which manages software applications.

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How to check your Web Server security?

Sometimes actions performed by the attacker on the server may affect its functionality. So its always advisable to check server’s security to avoid attack on the server. Always check the resources of server which might be affected.

You can check the CPU usage by firing top command and look for the application or scripts that consume your CPU

For strange processes you can check with ps -awux command.

Check /tmp directory and /var/tmp directory for scripts and binaries copied there.

The attacker might use the server to host IRC bot like psybnc or eggdrop which connects to port 6667 when a server is compromised . You can if any of your applications connect to that port with sockstat:

#sockstat | grep 6667

If there’s not much traffic on your server you could use netstat command to see if suspect connections are made.

#netstat -a

Install and run regularly an rootkit finder application (for e.g /usr/ports/security/rkhunter).

Look for the other open ports that you run other than the ones you use for your running services.

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Rsync

Rsync is a powerful command that is used to synchronize and transfer files and directories. Rsync is widely used for mirroring Web sites. and transfers only the changes in files, using a clever rsync algorithm. This is a very useful method for backups as it is uses minimal bandwidth and it is also commonly used to keep clustered servers working together. The ending slashes are very important while using rsync. If you are not familiar with how it works simply make sure to have an ending slash on both the source and the destination and it should be fine.

The general form is:

rsync source destination

A few examples are:
rsync -vrplogDtH /old/usr/local/apache/conf /usr/local/apache

That will sync the /old/usr/local/apache/conf/ directory to the /usr/local/apache/conf/ directory on the same server. If you want to use rsync to go between servers then use the following:

rsync -ave ssh root@192.168.0.1:/backup/ /backup/

That will take the backup directory on 192.168.0.1 and copy it to the server the command is run from. The command will also accept a remote destination if you adjust the command line accordingly.

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Deleting Stats logs daily in cPanel

Deleting Stats logs is something that is enabled on most servers but one does encounter servers with a full domlogs directory. To delete those logs you can follow these steps:-

First step is to check how large are the apache domain logs, you can check those on a cPanel server by running “du -hs /usr/local/apache/domlogs”. If the size of those logs is large, then you may want as much free space as possible. Login to WHM and click Tweak Settings. Within that menu click “Delete each domain’s access logs after stats run” which will enable this and click ‘Save’. Now at the end of the stats run every night it will wipe out the directory so you should not have the logs grow very large, unless of course your server is very busy.

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Setting Cronjobs

One of the most important task if you are a webmaster or a business website owner is to constantly update the website as well as perform routine tasks. Certain tasks such as running scripts, sending e-mails to a mailing list, or updating a database involve daily attention. However, there are times when you may fail to perform the task on hand at the right time. At time, some tasks may be too difficult for you to handle that they might take up a lot of your time and effort. You certainly can’t afford to miss performing certain tasks on time if you own a website that has a considerable number of visitors or subscribers consequences of which may result in loss and damaged company reputation for inability to deliver services on time.

You have a forum on your website and you wish to have a setting on it which should automatically delete account holders that have not been active for say last 100 days. Instead of manually sending a notification to each and every member, why not use a cron to make the task much more easier for you? With a cron job, you can easily monitor the inactive accounts and who among your members will automatically receive an e-mail reminder after exactly 100 days.

Cron jobs are automated programs created for Unix and Linux platforms. Their job is to complete the tasks by following the particular commands a web developer has assigned them to execute at the exact time and given date. For example, if you wish to send a group e-mail every morning at 7.00 or on the 3rd day of every month. With the help of Cron Job, you don’t have to to wake up yourself at 7.00 just to write the content of the group e-mail and send it to all members. All you need to do is set the time and date of the message delivery using the crontab.

A crontab is the file where cron settings are found. It contains the following fields: commands, minutes, hours, days, months, and weekdays. You can fill these fields with the information that will suit your needs or preferences. In case one option is not applicable like the minutes field, all you need to do is place an asterisk (*) instead. The actual crontab is presented through a text file that will require you to write complex codes or syntax. To make it more convenient to use, most web hosting providers nowadays offer a user-friendly version of a crontab. It’s now in the form of a web control panel that is fairly easy to configure.

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