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1117 discussions

by Andy Smith

Hello, In the last month I've been looking at improving the performance of the spamassassin spamd service. I added two more hosts to the load balancer and that has helped some, but the bottleneck has now moved to the bayes database. The servers are connecting to a MySQL bayes database so that they're all in sync, but the problem comes when the database slows down. Queries stack up and spamd doesn't seem to have config for giving up on bayes after (say) 10 seconds, so then those connections back up until all the servers are full. Normally I'd look at scaling it by doing multi-master replication, but the spamassassin docs specifically say this isn't supported and won't work. Has anyone scaled a spamassassin bayes DB before? Is my only option to replicate it to slaves with a MySQL proxy in front to send writes to the master? Maybe I could revert to using DB_File databases, but over NFS. Except it sounds horrible. Cheers, Andy -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

14 years, 9 months

Re: [bitfolk] The perils of opening tcp/22 to the Internet

by Mathew Newton

On Sun, March 14, 2010 10:37 am, Duane at e164 dot org wrote: > Doing semi-complete/complete backups via rsync/rsnapshot is difficult > using a non-SU account. Although if that's all you need root SSH access for you can always use the 'PermitRootLogin forced-commands-only' SSHD option. Mathew

14 years, 9 months

Re: [bitfolk] The perils of opening tcp/22 to the Internet

by Mathew Newton

Hi Andy, On Sun, March 14, 2010 8:51 am, Andy Smith wrote: > This very long email is about possible pro-active measures I could take > to prevent customers being compromised by SSH dictionary attacks. Apt timing for me - I've only just joined and noticed in my logs that from the very first day of my VPS going live I was receiving 500 login attempts per hour (not from another Bitfolk customer however). > 5) Install DenyHosts or Fail2Ban. I think this approach would be a good start, although note that neither of those support IPv6 so for those that have it enabled they'd turn a blind eye to such connections. SSHguard (http://www.sshguard.net) claims to support it however I've not used it personally. > (3) is already the case for Ubuntu of course, but not any of the other > distributions offered. I haven't kept track of how many compromises have > been of root and not some other user but disabling root access by SSH and > requiring some other username seems a reasonable starting point, would at > least limit the damage. My Ubuntu memories are somewhat hazy however is it not the case that with the default setup the first user is made part of the admin group? Hence, if their password is compromised an attacker also has full superuser rights through sudo... The attacker does of course have to be hitting the right username so there is still some mitigation however. Mathew

14 years, 9 months

Re: [bitfolk] The perils of opening tcp/22 to the Internet

by Alex Harrington

Hi Andy Would it be too much administrative overhead for you to have two levels of vps images. One would be fairly locked down, maybe with ssh on a different port, fail2ban and a basic firewall pre installed. The second would be the image you currently provide with ssh locked to key authentication only. If people want a vps provisioned with a password they get the first image. Users who provision with a key can choose either image. Alex This email carries a disclaimer, a copy of which may be read at http://learning.longhill.org.uk/disclaimer

14 years, 9 months

Package updates on Ubuntu boxes

by James Gregory

Hi all, Don't know if anyone knows of a more elegant solution than this (or perhaps an existing solution?) but I've a few Ubuntu boxes that I admin, and I've never any idea of when there are package updates. Now I know that Andy has provided a script (see http://www.bitfolk.com/customer_information.html#toc_3_Keeping_your_VPS_up_…) that notifies you when updates are available, but it's 'yet another thing'(c) that you have to run. I use Logwatch on all my servers, and so I wondered if it was possible to write an add-on for that that would integrate such information into the daily report - turns out there is (and it isn't too difficult to do either!) Firstly, obtain a copy of Andy's local-apt.pl script and copy it into /etc/logwatch/scripts/services. At this point, rename the script 'apt-updates' (but you can call it whatever you want). Then create a file in /etc/logwatch/conf/services and call it apt-updates.conf (again, you can call this whatever you want, but it must match the name given to the script). Inside this script, you only need the following two lines: (title can be customised if you prefer) Title = "Package Updates" LogFile = NONE To test this is working, execute the following line: sudo logwatch --service apt-updates --debug high (obviously replace 'apt-updates' bit if you've changed the script name) Assuming your server requires some updates, the list of packages will be displayed in the output (and also from now on in your daily Logwatch report). Hope this helps :) (and thanks to Andy for providing the above script) James

14 years, 9 months

Re: [bitfolk] Apache user dir & php

by James Gregory

Hi Neil, (cc'd the list back in :) Might be a good idea to grep the rest of the Apache config files, and see if you can find anywhere else where it might be disabled. That config should allow it to work anywhere on your site (assuming it isn't disabled elsewhere :) James On 10 March 2010 20:42, Neil Perry <nperry(a)gmail.com> wrote: > James, > Thanks for your reply. I'm using debian, but found the php5.conf. > Here is its current contents: > <IfModule mod_php5.c> > <FilesMatch "\.ph(p3?|tml)$"> > SetHandler application/x-httpd-php > </FilesMatch> > </IfModule> > Nothing about the ifmodule user dir. > Thanks > Neil Perry > > > On 10 March 2010 20:38, James Gregory <jgxenite(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Hi Neil, >> >> If you're using Ubuntu, look in /etc/apache2/mods-available/php5.conf: >> <IfModule mod_userdir.c> >> <Directory /home/*/public_html> >> php_admin_value engine Off >> </Directory> >> </IfModule> >> You need to comment out the above lines - they disable PHP in user >> directories. >> >> Hope that helps! >> >> James >> >> On 10 March 2010 20:28, Mathew Newton <bitfolklist(a)newtonnet.co.uk> wrote: >> > Sorry Neil, disregard my advice as I now that I read your e-mail >> > *properly* I see you were making specific reference to the user dir! >> > >> > Apologies for the noise everyone... >> > >> > Mathew >> > >> > On Wed, March 10, 2010 8:25 pm, Mathew Newton wrote: >> >> Hi Neil, >> >> >> >> On Wed, March 10, 2010 8:16 pm, Neil Perry wrote: >> >>> When I go to a PHP file in my user dir it downloads the php file. The >> >>> html >> >>> index file seems to work fine. >> >> >> >> Have you got Apache's PHP module installed and enabled? >> >> >> >> As root, the following will sort it (or confirm if they are already): >> >> >> >> apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5 >> >> a2enmod php5 >> >> >> >> (Then restart Apache with /etc/init.d/apache2 restart) >> >> >> >> Without this module, Apache just sees them as text files and outputs >> >> the >> >> content rather than interprets it. >> >> >> >> Mathew >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > users mailing list >> > users(a)lists.bitfolk.com >> > https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/users >> > > >

14 years, 9 months

Apache user dir & php

by Neil Perry

Hello guys, Wonder if someone could lend me a hand, as i'm kind of stuck. When I go to a PHP file in my user dir it downloads the php file. The html index file seems to work fine. http://www.nperry.eu/~neil/moo.php <http://www.nperry.be/~neil/moo.php> <http://www.nperry.be/~neil/moo.php>http://www.nperry.eu/~neil/index.php Index files at my www root are working fine! Has anyone got an idea for me to fix this, please? Many Thanks Neil Perry

14 years, 9 months

Changing system time from UTC to GMT?

by Mathew Newton

Hi all, I am a recent newcomer to Bitfolk, and indeed VPS's in general, and so far good - far surpassing expectations in fact. I have been busy migrating several of my services from my home server to the new VPS and have noticed a slight difference in representation in time - the use of UTC versus GMT - in areas such as logs, application variables (Apache date-related SSI's for example). My question is, can I change the system clock from UTC to GMT and, if so, how? I am aware that I could tweak most applications (e.g. Apache's config timefmt command) however I would prefer to change this in only one place if at all possible. If this is doable, would I risk breaking anything? I've seen some mention of time synchronisation issues between the VPS and host system in previous discussions and so am conscious that this could be a dangerous area for idle tweaking. My preference for GMT/BST is largely aesthetic, and perhaps also simply what I'm used to, with a slight hint of British tradition thrown in also! Would be grateful for any advice. Regards, Mathew

14 years, 9 months

Possible discrepancy in bitfolk account passwords

by Andy Smith

Hi, Yesterday morning I switched https://panel.bitfolk.com to use a pair of replicated LDAP servers instead of just the one, so that it would still work if the LDAP server was down. Only today I noticed that password changes were being accepted but not applied because Net::LDAP does not automatically follow referrals. The consumer (slave) LDAP is read-only and refers updates to the provider. I have now reverted configuration so that only the provider server is used, until I can write the code to manually follow referrals. If you changed your password via the panel web site in the last 36-ish hours, you may want to check that it's actually taken effect. Changes from the Xen Shell (ssh username(a)username.console.bitfolk.com) will have been processed properly. Apologies for the confusion. Cheers, Andy -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting >> I have just recently purchased a Feathercraft Big Kahuna kayak > does it have a heater? Of course not. Everyone knows you can't have your kayak and heat it. -- James Fidell

14 years, 9 months

OggCamp, Liverpool, 1st & 2nd May

by Andy Smith

Hello, BitFolk is proud to be one of the sponsors of OggCamp on May 1st and 2nd in Liverpool, UK: http://oggcamp.org/ If you're planning to attend OggCamp then do let me know so I can say hello. :) Cheers, Andy -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting "Xandros's low-level support for the Eee mostly seemed to consist of a pile of shell scripts made of cheese and failure." -- Matthew Garrett

14 years, 9 months

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