Hi guys and gals, just looking for some advice. My uncle has asked me to build and host a website for him. I was wondering what i need to worry about on the security side of things. Its just going to be a business site no database or payments being taken online or anything of that nature. I am going to use either centos or windows server 2008 r2. Thanks
So your hosting this site at home? Why? Also Server08 is way overkill for just a website. Dose he even have the licence for it? Seriously £1.99 a month pay for hosting it's cheaper, faster & more reliable.
I'd never host it myself, not worth the damage to a businesses reputation if it was down or got hacked. Also it'll be slow to load on a home connection. I use www.justhost.com, I host 4 different websites on it so it's a complete bargain for the price!
this will be hosted at my work on their main pipe (over 200mbit) and i have a license for server 2008 r2, also the server will end up hosting other things such as vent, mumble and possibly a minecraft server. I am not 100% set on hosting this for them im just trying to plan it out and see what is required. The machine is a qx6700, 8gb ddr2 800, 9800Gt.
So your work has agreed to host this? And pay for an additional IP just for you? What backup plans do you have in place? Sent from my HTC HD2 using Tapatalk
Security is a broad topic, it depends on the individual site and anything that they have on it. Most issues on website security come into play is when you have input facilities on the site, in either feedback forms, comment forms, contact us forms ect. The problem with these is that a hacker could try a cross site scripting hack, or a sql insertion hack, if they are not properly coded to sanitize the input. However the site itself isn't the only things that has to worry about security. The server itself must be secure as well, but if you are using a work server, then they are more likely well protected. Ultimately through there is a huge amount of facilities that you could put on the site, which can make it a service as well as a source of information and an online advertisement. I would recommend reading, o'reily's learning PHP, MySQL, and Javascript before adding any functionality to a site if you are not too sure about security, this will give you a basic foundation, and some pretty good examples of some things you can do. It ends with an example of a basic social networking site, and cover other topics like Ajax.
I'd never let any personal servers anywhere near my work network, not even in the DMZ. The risk is just too high as the business would be liable for anything that goes on it (legal or not!) as I'd have given them permission to use my connection and facilities.
I'd go with the above regarding the website - just put it on a webhost for a couple of pounds a month. I've been a webhost before, as well as working for another at different times. You do NOT want to deal with the call at 2am when your server has been hacked, rooted, and all the data deleted. Strongly, strongly recommend you host the website with a webhost who deals with this kind of stuff all the time and saves you the effort. Its so worth it, and with webhosts as cheap as they get - you can usually find some for £14.99 for a YEAR - its not really worth it. Even business-class hosting runs to £9.99 a month. You can probably find the same prices in $ easily for a good host. Having said that, there's no reason you can't still beg the indulgence of your employer to host minecraft/etc on that server To save a bit of power, you don't need a 9800GT in a server. A 2mb or 4mb PCI card not even 3d accelerated will use much less power and create less heat.
I work for an ISP, I have talked to the owner of the ISP and he gave me the go ahead to put my own server in and to use it. I would not be on the same network as their equipment, i would be on a external ip just like one of the normal customers would be, I would just be able to use more bandwidth. I may end up hosting the website my uncle wants through a web host but I would still like to host my own + vent server and maybe a Minecraft server. Any recommendations?
it really depends which version of server 2008r2 you are using, web server requires no other licensing, than the license it comes with. Useful info
As I have said plenty times before, Linux is the way to go for a server. Something like Ubuntu Server should be enough for the needs of a website or vent server, but for Minecraft the best thing is MineOS+. It is a very lightweight Linux distro that is designed to run Minecraft, and has a lot of scripting backend that aids with the running of such a server. It has a web based front end that you can create new servers, run commands through, stop/start servers, and create/restore backups. The scripts also have rdiff functionality meaning small, regular backups with very little interruption. All that happens during the backup is the server is forced to save to disk, then rdiff creates an incremental backup with small size - a backup that is the difference of the last backup compared with the current world. MineOS+ also comes with RAMDISK functionality. This means that your entire world/plugins are stored in RAM, which basically eliminates all server based IO lag. I sometimes run a little MineOS+ server on a virtual machine, and have experiences no server issues at all. It's such a shame that my ISP has bad upload speeds I recommend MineOS+ for any Minecraft server. For other servers the distro choice is a bit more vague, but Ubuntu Server is a good route to take with the capability of Canocial and the massive user base behind it. You could run the web server and Ventrilo server on MineOS+, but it is not designed to do that and will end up wasting resources. The best way to go is probably container based virtualisation, that separates the distros (allowing for the performance gains of MineOS+) yet still has little of the overhead that other virtualisation techniques have. According to the OpenVZ website, container based virtualisation has only 1-2% overhead, compared with the 30%+ overhead of something like Virtualbox. And if you ever need any help setting up a Linux server, then send me a PM. Links: MineOS+ OpenVZ Ubuntu Server RAMDISKs
