The thing about having your own server is that it's available for all the Internet to see. That means people trying to break in.
This server, for instance, currently has two kinds of people trying to break in. There's a few people running random attempts to ssh in. They're guessing accounts and failing miserably.
But then there's another kind. They trying to access files via other methods. What's intriguing about them is they've guessed quite a few accounts on here, some quite obscure - not the standard names you'd find in a dictionary. That kind of hints they're cleverer. Maybe they've used OpenLDAP to guess them; maybe they've parsed the text on my site to guess them; maybe they've even read a couple of my tutorials and gleaned the account names from them. But it does imply a level of intelligence, rather than automation.
Anyway, I've changed the accounts or disabled them and doubled the password lengths, so that should set them back a bit. I'll consider modifying my firewall rules to stop access to specific services outside the local network (a pain but it should be helpful if they're using LDAP to get the accounts lists).
Soon, though, I'll be relocating all my web sites, mail server, etc to a new host (finally found one that, while it didn't explicitly state it supported MovableType, does have all the required Perl modules installed) so those worries will be a thing of the past. More importantly, it will mean I can finally turn my iMac off at nights. This is A Good Thing because it will reduce…
Technorati Tags: hackers, security, servers, site migration, web hosts
- the amount of heat in our front room
- the level of noise
- our electricity bill
- our contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere through electricity use
- wear and tear on the iMac and its poor little hard drive
- the chances of disastrous disruptions to service from ISP issues, iMacs breaking or needing upgrades and too many people trying to connect to my server when it only has a domestic ADSL connection.
It will also:
- let me use my iMac for naughty things like games
- let me use it for sensible things, like running OS 9 for use in magazine tutorials
Equally importantly, I'll no longer have to keep in mind how I should divvy up the bandwidth between the mail server, web sites and whatever I happen to be doing. If the web host, DataFlame, is doing its job properly, the sites should run quicker and have more bandwidth anyway.
It'll be a slow migration to give me time to test everything, so the changes when they do happen, won't be fast and should, in fact, be barely noticeable beyond a slight speed increase for everyone.
They'll probably write that on my gravestone.
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