my webserver
 

so after weeks of agonizing research and trial and error, i finally found out that the reason my webserver wouldn't run was because of my dsl modem. everything is back on track now, and if anyone would care to check out the site and give me some feedback (not really any content yet, but the graphics are cool) i would appreciate it. eventually, the site will be localslackers.com, but for now it's just an ip

http://65.7.245.230

i would like to thank everyone on tfp who answered my networking questions, inane as some of them were, and hope you like the site.

Running Apache. Nice stuff. Looks pretty good so far.

What are you planning to use in the way of nameservers? Your own? A third party service perhaps?

Links do not work in Firefox on my PowerBook.

Links don't work for me either in firefox. I think it may be because you aren't calling a page, just passing an additional value.

Also have you thought of what you will do when your DSL company decides to have your modem lease a new address? Once that happens the name won't resolve to anyplace.

you could always use a dynamic dns service like http://www.dyndns.org

Thats what I do... Works pretty well, so long as you dont mine having to redirect to one of their domains (my site is theravenel.mine.nu... my domain, theravenel.net, redirects there).

For $25/yr, you can have dyndns.org host your dns for any of your domains. Then you don't have to use one of the provided domains of theirs. Then you just use a dyndns client like you do for any of the free provided domains, and you're set.

yeah, sorry if anyone tried to hit the server lately, some bastard's been launching DoS attacks at me all day long...btw, the links don't go anywhere...YET. and in terms of renewing my ip lease, i'm going to have to move in a year anyway, so i think i'll be ok. no idea what dns server i'm using, my php man registered the domain name to the ip. btw, LOCAL SLACKERS is up and running, so you don't have to use the ip link anymore

Graphics are good, although I think a small bit of text saying what the site is about may not go amiss - I looked at the front page and thought "huh?", then noticed the links along the top.

You said it's up and running, but the links still do not work. I assume that's still intentional?

Just be aware that if you reboot your modem, power goes out, or whatever, it is possible for your IP to change. Then when people type in the URL, it won't work.

i'm paying for a static ip from bellsouth, and i've got the modem set up as a gateway with no say in what's done with information, it just forwards everything to the router. in the next 2 hours or so more of the site will be operational, we're just trying to work out some php bugs. i'll throw out another post when everything is **somewhat** set up.

btw, this site is really just us wanting to have a quote board and a place to host projects without paying for hosting, in addition to individual areas that will be added by myself, my room mate, and the guy who's coding for us, it's not business/school related

so uh, i REALLY need some advice. the webserver was up and running, and withstanding between 30 and 40 attacks per hour (thanks to sygate personal pro). my php coder and i decided to set up a two way ftp server so he could update the page from his house. i thought it was a bad idea from the get go, on a new server for the first server i've ever run, and it turned out i was right. someone compromised the ftp, the logs were cleared, the entire website was deleted, and the apache server won't run anymore. we've already upgraded to apache 2.0.49 from 1.3.29, and i was just wondering what is a good ftp server, and if there is a better firewall/webserver that could be used. the best security measure would be to switch to linux and run iptables, but my friend has no linux experience. we were running wftp, btw, and are thinking about switching to bullet ftp. please, any advice would be REALLY appreciated

Standard practice after a server has been cracked is to wipe the box. Grab any logifles you can, try to figure out what he did, and then blow it away and reinstall the OS. You dont know what he did to the machine, and there isnt any real way to find out.

Consider using something more secure than FTP in the future. SSH/SCP or SFTP are good places to start.

Sailor's right: burn the drive and reinstall. There's no such thing as "cleaning up" a hacked box.

FTP servers aren't very secure, but they're a necessary evil sometimes. At least make sure that whatever you install is up to date. If you install a year-old version, you'll get portscanned and banner-IDed and whatever vulnerabilities in that old version will be exploited in no time. As you found--you can be hacked within minutes of putting the service live.

When I HAVE to use FTP I install ProFTPd. I've never had it hacked. That and $3.75 gets you a Venti Latte.

There are lots of GUI tools for setting up an iptables firewalling script. Go to freshmeat and search for iptables firewall. Close every port except ftp and http. Also, make sure you don't accidentally have any other services running. Run nmap against the server and see what you get--you can be sure that the script kiddies will!

so a system restore won't do the trick? DAMN YOU MICROSOFT!! thanks for the advice, i'm going to stick with xp for now, guess i'll go ahead and reformat :( definitely plan on switching the server to linux as soon as i can convince my coder to get away from microshaft. i looked into freshmeat, and i found some great stuff. thanks for a new resource, ratbastid, and thank you sailor for the suggestions on a more secure way to update the server remotely. hopefully the server will be up and running (with CONTENT, no less) by tomorrow. i'll shout out when i get everything set up.

EDIT we're using bigdaddy's dns service

redhat 9, fully updated, kernel ver 2.4.20
256 megs ram
1 ghz proc
cd, floppy
bellsouth dsl

i reformatted the server, and i'm now running redhat 9, fully updated, (kernel too, 2.4.20, as high as the distro supports). for the webserver, i'm running apache 2.0.49, and i'm not having any problems accessing the site.

my friend and i tried to configure vsftpd to allow remote updates to the web site (as i tried, as mentioned in the above post, with wftpd), but when i try to access the server (using filezilla 2.2.5) i get the following error message

Status: Connecting to 192.168.1.101 ...
Status: Connected with 192.168.1.101. Waiting for welcome message...
Error: Disconnected from server
Error: Unable to connect!

i configured iptables using the default redhat gui (might be the default kde gui) to allow connections to a webserver and an ftp server to no avail. i know it's not a problem with my router, as i'm only trying to access the ftp server from inside my domain.

i have 2 questions regarding my problem

when i formatted the machine, i selected to allow http access on port 80, but i DIDN'T set up to allow ftp access until after the install.
could this have anything to do with my problem?

the other is, if this is the problem, would configuring iptables through the console to allow connections on port 21 change anything?

once again, any advice is appreciated

so once again, my webserver is up and running. redhat 9, apache 2.0.49, check it out: LOCAL SLACKERS

my friend/coder killed the pc trying to add ram, so i'm gutting it for parts. no more webserver until i find another desktop, so don't try to hit the site. GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD