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How to set up a safe and secure Web server

arstechnica.com

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Re: How to set up a safe and secure Web server

#41

Post by edanm »

hristov wrote: post #40
barefoot wrote: post #14

"...being locked to IIS as a Web server (or dependent on crippled Windows ports of better Web servers) means you'll be playing in the bush leagues. IIS is found running many huge and powerful websites in the world, but it's rarely selected in a vacuum..." I sense a little bit of bias. As a multiplatform developer I can think of a number of reasons why someone might opt to go the Windows Server route. ASP.NET MVC 4 is…

I tried to read the Bizspark FAQ, and now my head hurts. But anyways, what I think I was able to get out of it is that: 1. You have to apply. 2. You have to be approved, which takes a minimum of 5 business days, and you may not get approved. 3. At some point you "graduate" and lose your licenses and have to pay for software. The faq does not say when this graduation happens, but I seem to remember hearing something a…

Unless something has changed:

1. It does take a few days.

2. You do need to be approved. I've heard of plenty of people signing up and getting approved, not about anyone who hasen't. I don't think it's a problem to get approved assuming you're really a startup. And for the record, you don't need to give them almost any information, save a website and filling out a few forms.

3. It lasts for 3 years. I think there's also a limit on how profitable you can be and still be eligible for the program, but it's something high. E.g., if you're making 1 million dollars in profit already, you're not eligible.

All in all, I sense from your tone that you're really looking down on this. But Microsoft is basically giving away thousands of dollars of software to any startup that wants it. Not just servers, but also Windows, the Office Suite, etc. This is a great opportunity and startups that aren't taking advantage of it are missing.

Re: How to set up a safe and secure Web server

#42

Post by gprasanth »

hristov wrote: post #40
barefoot wrote: post #14

"...being locked to IIS as a Web server (or dependent on crippled Windows ports of better Web servers) means you'll be playing in the bush leagues. IIS is found running many huge and powerful websites in the world, but it's rarely selected in a vacuum..." I sense a little bit of bias. As a multiplatform developer I can think of a number of reasons why someone might opt to go the Windows Server route. ASP.NET MVC 4 is…

I tried to read the Bizspark FAQ, and now my head hurts. But anyways, what I think I was able to get out of it is that: 1. You have to apply. 2. You have to be approved, which takes a minimum of 5 business days, and you may not get approved. 3. At some point you "graduate" and lose your licenses and have to pay for software. The faq does not say when this graduation happens, but I seem to remember hearing something a…

I have a win 8 professional license from DreamSpark(my university had to apply for this). The license I got was valid for 2 years, and I graduate in 6 months. So, it's not really hard like you say.

Re: How to set up a safe and secure Web server

#43

Post by daemon13 »

barefoot wrote: post #14

"...being locked to IIS as a Web server (or dependent on crippled Windows ports of better Web servers) means you'll be playing in the bush leagues. IIS is found running many huge and powerful websites in the world, but it's rarely selected in a vacuum..." I sense a little bit of bias. As a multiplatform developer I can think of a number of reasons why someone might opt to go the Windows Server route. ASP.NET MVC 4 is…

Why?

The article's target audience is not professional sysadmins, but people who would like to set-up a server and tweak it for their needs.

>> I can think of a number of reasons why someone might opt to go the Windows Server route.

Sure, but practically speaking this happens most often in the corporate env. See above re target audience.

>> can both be obtained for free through the DreamSpark program for college students and through the similar BizSpark program for startups and small businesses.

Why would anyone do this? Just type in terminal three commands and you are done. I am honestly curious - why would anyone use IIS except it mandatory per corporate P&P...?

Re: How to set up a safe and secure Web server

#44

Post by belorn »

barefoot wrote: post #14

"...being locked to IIS as a Web server (or dependent on crippled Windows ports of better Web servers) means you'll be playing in the bush leagues. IIS is found running many huge and powerful websites in the world, but it's rarely selected in a vacuum..." I sense a little bit of bias. As a multiplatform developer I can think of a number of reasons why someone might opt to go the Windows Server route. ASP.NET MVC 4 is…

If pushing a new website to the webserver is the best argument of WAMP over LAMP, it sounds a bit odd. Pushing a new simplistic website to a LAMP (default one click installed), has as much difficulty as pushing files to a directory (/var/www). Even if Visual Studio gives a one-button-system, I would still not call that a killer feature over placing files in a directory.

When one pick between WAMP and LAMP, the question one should ask is if a) what framework matches best with the developers skill/knowledge and what features the site is going to have, b) what performance requirements are there, and c) what legacy code will have to run along side. Everything else is just buzz.

Re: How to set up a safe and secure Web server

#45

Post by bad_user »

edanm wrote: post #41
hristov wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to read the Bizspark FAQ, and now my head hurts. But anyways, what I think I was able to get out of it is that: 1. You have to apply. 2. You have to be approved, which takes a minimum of 5 business days, and you may not get approved. 3. At some point you "graduate" and lose your licenses and have to pay for software. The faq does not say when this graduation happens, but I seem to remember hearing something a…

Unless something has changed: 1. It does take a few days. 2. You do need to be approved. I've heard of plenty of people signing up and getting approved, not about anyone who hasen't. I don't think it's a problem to get approved assuming you're really a startup. And for the record, you don't need to give them almost any information, save a website and filling out a few forms. 3. It lasts for 3 years. I think there's a…

(2) there are in fact people that got disproved, with the most common reason being that they didn't want to provide details about what they actually want to build.

Also people discussing the Spark programs never mention one basic fact - in many countries starting a company is a bureaucratic nightmare and it's not free of charge either. You also need to pay an accountant too, as bookkeeping can get complicated even if you don't have any revenues, depending on the local legislation.

The Spark programs are basically incompatible with most startups, considering how most startups are started - an individual or a bunch of people starting something and experimenting on the side.

> Microsoft is basically giving away thousands of dollars of software to any startup that wants it

Price does not necessarily correlate with provided value, but rather with the scarcity of a resource in the context of supply/demand and the scarcity of many Microsoft licenses is rather artificial.

I use "thousands of dollars of software" every day for free, without having to be approved, without bureaucracy and without a 3-years ticking time bomb.

Re: How to set up a safe and secure Web server

#46

Post by bad_user »

gprasanth wrote: post #42
hristov wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to read the Bizspark FAQ, and now my head hurts. But anyways, what I think I was able to get out of it is that: 1. You have to apply. 2. You have to be approved, which takes a minimum of 5 business days, and you may not get approved. 3. At some point you "graduate" and lose your licenses and have to pay for software. The faq does not say when this graduation happens, but I seem to remember hearing something a…

I have a win 8 professional license from DreamSpark(my university had to apply for this). The license I got was valid for 2 years, and I graduate in 6 months. So, it's not really hard like you say.

Except that all usage of licenses from DreamSpark must be non-commercial, without ifs and buts. Students are also a minority.

Re: How to set up a safe and secure Web server

#47

Post by dkokelley »

jkuria wrote: post #7

Frankly, articles like these are a deterrent to all but the most techie of people. Why go through all this and shell $270 when you can get an Amazon EC2 instance free for a year!

It's considerably more than $270 if you're using your own hardware. Consider bandwidth and energy costs.

I do wish the article gave more attention to VPS providers like AWS or Rackspace, but I don't see how anything in the article could discourage someone from administering their own server (that is, of the set of people who aren't already put off by scary command lines). 90% of the article is relevant to someone with a VPS.

FWIW, my current costs for a single dev server at Rackspace (initially Slicehost) are about $12-$20/month ($240 max for a year), which probably costs less than the electricity my current computer is using.

Re: How to set up a safe and secure Web server

#48

Post by belorn »

politician wrote: post #18
hardik988 wrote: post #11

Pardon my stupidity, but how would one go about getting an IP address for a server installed at home? Is it a static IP address provided by my ISP, or something else ?

The messages that your computer sends to the internet include an IP address which the internet uses to send responses back to your computer. The problem is that these addresses are unstable -- your ISP reserves the right to change it, basically. If you want to host a server from home, you have a few choices: a) Obtain a static IP address from your ISP. b) Obtain a domain name from a dynamic DNS provider and map that…

There is an alternative, one can create a IPv6 only service, as tunnels with static IP are commonly free.

Of course there is the downside that no one except those very few people that has ipv6 will be able to use that service, but it is free and it can be a very useful way to access a computer behind nat.

Re: How to set up a safe and secure Web server

#49

Post by mylittlepony »

buster wrote: post #31

Ah well, it's rather a "how i set up a small web server for fiddling around with stuff" not so much a professional article about security. Sorry, but the first page is like "mhh, yeah, geeks hate MS, let's use the other choices" under the hood. Why? Because it doesn't really mention a technical choice against MS. Don't get me wrong i would never ever use Windows Server but when i'd write such an article i'd have to f…

As a professional developer and amateur sysadmin, I have to say Ubuntu is a great choice, and I will never use CentOS again. The main reason being how updated packages are in Ubuntu, and outdated in CentOS. I don't know about the other options.
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