Website hosted on a 24 year old Linux server

Post by artificial » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 4:32 PM UTC

doublerabbit wrote: post #22

ElectricalUnion wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All you need to store this kind of data is a simple file. You mostly likely need a WAL Mode SQLite database. Most of the time, it's way simpler that handling state handling in concurrent situations yourself. (also, bindings are often available - if not outright bundled by default - under most common languages) The "easy" way is all fun and games until your file is accessed in a concurrent fashion, and then your opt…

> You mostly likely need a WAL Mode SQLite database. Overkill, If you are writing to the text file only to increment a number of visitors, none of what you mentioned above is even required. Create a "counter-hit" file for each visitor, count the number of files in the resources directory. Populate the master file with the file count and delete all the temporary files. Configure it on a crontab for say every three sec…

Post by SoftTalker » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

warner25 wrote: post #50

sillysaurusx wrote: post #5

I remember how magical and mysterious a view counter used to feel when I was a kid. How did the website know when someone visited it? Where was the count stored? And how on earth could a website update its own HTML to show the new count? Geocities days were magical. I wonder if kids today have similar thoughts about Twitter profiles and such. It’s probably much easier to pick up the knowledge — back then, it was balk…

> I wonder if kids today have similar thoughts I'm sure that some do, and most don't. Most kids 30 years ago didn't have similar thoughts either. Few people are meant to be programmers, engineers, etc. Were you not shunned as a nerd for having an interest in how computers worked?

Post by SoftTalker » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 4:44 PM UTC

johnbellone wrote: post #32

sillysaurusx wrote: post #5

I remember how magical and mysterious a view counter used to feel when I was a kid. How did the website know when someone visited it? Where was the count stored? And how on earth could a website update its own HTML to show the new count? Geocities days were magical. I wonder if kids today have similar thoughts about Twitter profiles and such. It’s probably much easier to pick up the knowledge — back then, it was balk…

I feel like you could do this without a database using the Linux kernel inotify API. Every time a file is accessed trigger an increment. It’s too beautiful of a day outside to try this right now but an interesting brain teaser!

Post by cpncrunch » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 4:49 PM UTC

Aachen wrote: post #24

ashleyn wrote: post #2

Surely hope that isn't running a 24-year old Linux distribution...

Is there actually a bug that's remotely exploitable in the TCP stack, if you drop everything besides bound tcp ports in iptables? Any time I see a customer using an ssh or apache version from ten years ago (different from the kernel, but the kernel doesn't give you version disclosure), the list of bugs is all like "if they use RewriteRule and the second URI parameter is echoed unfiltered into a Location header by the…

Post by hammyhavoc » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 4:54 PM UTC

doublepg23 wrote: post #54

warner25 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if kids today have similar thoughts I'm sure that some do, and most don't. Most kids 30 years ago didn't have similar thoughts either. Few people are meant to be programmers, engineers, etc. Were you not shunned as a nerd for having an interest in how computers worked?

> Were you not shunned as a nerd for having an interest in how computers worked? I certainly wasn’t in the 10s. Usually people would come to me and my nerd buddies for PC building advice, smartphone advice, and of course the occasional “can you pirate this for me” request ;)