[CentOS] Web server in a sandbox?

Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
Fri Sep 11 16:42:32 UTC 2009


Anne Wilson wrote:
> 
>>> installing mediawiki under /var/www/etc will keep it in the sandboxed
>>> area - correct?
>> What do you mean by "sandbox"?
> 
> I mean the ability to use it as though it were a live system, but not in fact 
> accessible by the Internet.

The install location doesn't have much to do with accessibility, 
although your apache configuration can apply IP and/or login 
restrictions if you want.

>> And I think you mean /var/www/html, there is no /var/www/etc in
>>  RHEL/CentOS...
>>
> Oops - badly expressed.  I meant 'etc' in the generic sense, not the directory 
> sense.

But pretty much irrelevant except for mapping into http.conf restrictions.

>> If you want something that can later on be replicated in another
>> server, I would advise you to do the setup as close as possible to the
>> way it is done on the other server, otherwise your findings might not
>> be applicable to that setup...
>>
> Hmm - since I don't have that level of access on the real server that may not 
> be easy, but I can certainly talk to the sysadmins to see how far that is 
> possible.

If you have a typical firewalled LAN with private addresses, just run 
the wiki there instead of on a machine that can be accessed from the 
internet and you won't have to worry about it.  Wiki's are most useful 
if you can make them easily accessible to everyone who might use the 
information and a LAN-only connection may make it possible to avoid any 
other restrictions.   If you need an internet-facing wiki, you have to 
be much more careful, though.  Since the point is to allow easy 
modification and uploads they are very likely targets for 
vulnerabilities and you have to keep the code up to date.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com






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