If you’re on a cPanel server, you’ve probably noticed a sizable folder called ‘virtfs’ sitting in /home, which would appear at first to be using a ton of space. Your first inclination might be to delete it, but don’t! Most likely, the files in that folder are actually just hard links or bind mounts and…
Read moreNote: This is an update from our 2011 post. If you’ve taken a peek at your PCI scan results lately, you may have noticed that your scan provider is now requiring OpenSSH 6.6 or higher due to CVE-2014-2532 – a version that is not currently available in the CentOS 5 or 6 repositories. A Yum update isn’t going…
Read moreUPDATE 6/18: Shortly after this was posted and one of the major hosting companies I’m affiliated with removed BetterLinux from their servers due to stability problems, BetterLinux announced that they are shutting down, effective July 1st. Customers ask us all the time whether they should use CloudLinux or BetterLinux on their servers, and what differences exist…
Read moreThe latest security buzz this month is about the SSLv3 POODLE vulnerability, and how SSL version 3.0 is now officially designated as insecure, joining its predecessors versions 1.0 (unreleased) and 2.0. This effectively concludes the life cycle of the SSL protocol in favor of TLS. This post will give you a brief overview of what POODLE…
Read moreWeb hosts often shy away from the idea of allowing SSH access to their clients on shared servers, typically due to security concerns bred by the hosting industry. Some of the largest providers, however, are now offering SSH to make their services more functional for advanced users, so now we are often asked whether allowing SSH as a feature is a…
Read moreOver the past few days, we have received an overwhelming number of questions about the OpenSSL Heartbleed bug and how cPanel system administrators should be handling this. First of all, if you haven’t read Codenomicon’s write-up on the bug, which thoroughly explains what it is, you should look visit heartbleed.com. Because their website already covers…
Read moreThere comes a time in every sysadmin’s life where filesystem errors just…happen. Luckily, these are somewhat easy to fix, assuming you don’t have a greater problem involving physical hardware damage. First, you need to know the name of the disk device having the problem. Do a quick df to see what device the affected partition…
Read moreIf you’re running CentOS, you’re probably a few versions behind on Python. Currently, the version packaged for CentOS 5 and 6 is 2.6. Contrary to what the title of this post implies, you actually cannot safely upgrade Python on any Redhat distribution. If you’re feeling brave, try this to see why: yum remove python Warning,…
Read moreThe skeleton (aka “skel”) directory is one of the frequently ignored features on Linux servers, especially for hosting providers. With the skel directory, you can easily configure a default set of files to be automatically copied into new user accounts, which is particularly useful for customizing the holding pages for new customer websites. On…
Read moreThis may seem pretty simple, but I see a lot of questions about how to get a user’s disk space usage on a cPanel user. I put together a quick list of 5 simple ways for the average admin: 1) Good ole’ cPanel/WHM. You can see the usage on the left-hand side of cPanel,…
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