This simple guide will help you secure your server in indirect way by hiding software versions from possible attackers. This can help you prevent many automated attacks and attacks based on software version number. If a hacker want’s to probe your system for hole he’ll start from collecting all version numbers from your running services. This guide will teach you setup common services not to give away their version numbers. This is called Security by obscurity and it’s not something to rely on but it can lower chances of getting your system hacked.
Apache (Web Server)
Let’s start with Apache first. It’s config file should at path
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
Open that with an editor of choice. For beginners I always suggest Midnight Commander but if you’re more experienced you can use antother editor like pico or vi. Anyway, in MC open file for editing by pressing F4 while the file is selected.
Locate those two lines and set it as follows. If you cant find them – add them.
ServerSignature Off
ServerTokens Prod
Server Signature will remove the identification of Apache version from error pages, and ServerTokens will identify Apache as “apache” without version number or OS information. Save the file and restart the Apache.
service httpd restart
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Midnight Commander is an awesome little file management tool. Learn how to install Midnight Commander. Folks that remember Norton Commander from MS DOS times know what I’m talking about.
Often problem with using Midnight Commander in PuTTY is that often it’s lines are messed up and look like this:
Midnight Commander in PuTTY with lines now rendered correctly.
This happens when because of charsets mismatch that uses PuTTY uses and MC. To fix this you’ll need to fix the charset in PuTTY. This guide however works only on sessions saved in PuTTY!
Here’s how to do it:
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Whats Midnight Commander?
Midnight Commander is Shell application (visual file manager) for SSH like Norton Commander, that older geeks may remember from the time of DOS, or like Total Commander, the most advanced Shell application today.
Why do I need Midnight Commander?
Midnight Commander will help you move more easily trough server files/folders, edit config files, copy/move/delete files/folders/whole directory trees, pack and unpack archives, search for files, run commands in shell… You can also use MC to connect to other server’s FTP and copy files from/to other servers. (can be useful when migrating from one server to another)
How to install Midnight Commander?
The easiest way is using yum or apt-get package menages: all you need to do is execute one command and it will install Midnight Commander and all it’s dependencies
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If you, like me, hate ads and malicious websites there is a simple solution for all your problems. While most plugins just hide displaying of ads, or block ads just in browser that have the blocker installed, this hack totally blocks ads from even loading on whole computer in all browsers you have installed. As a bonus it’s not slowing down your browser like those ad blocking plugins with their tens of thousands of rules.
For this post I’ll show you how to block Google AdSense and Yahoo ads but you can use any ad network or website. Also, it’s good idea to block ads on your computer when you work a lot on your website so you cant make any accidental clicks since clicking on ads on your own site can get your account closed and get you accused of click fraud.
The whole process is easy as one, two, three!
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Hello fellow geeks or geek wannabes 🙂
This is post number one and according to geek tradition it simply must start with standard
Hello World!
Okay, now once we got that out of the way (and are now for sure that it’s working), I want to discuss what is this blog all about. Well, I’m self thought PHP/MySQL developer and Linux System administrator. Except that I do fairly good with lots of other coding tools (like Java, Visaul Basic…), but I really like web developmental the most and this is why I’m going to write mostly about that. I have split the blog in few areas:
- Just Sayin’ – in here I’ll post about various stuff that come up on my mind and that don’t fit in any other category
- Server Administration – in here I’ll try to write tutorials, guides and tips that can be useful to any admin (beginner or expert)
- Web Development – I’ll write in here about various stuff including but not limited to: php, javascript, Ajax, jQuery, Prototype, Smarty, Code Igniter…
- WordPress – is one of my favorite web development tools. It’s easy to use and customize and I love working with it, so I’ll devote a whole category just to it.
Make sure you bookmark the site so you can find it later more easily or subscribe to our feed to keep updated. I don’t need to mention that you need to press CTRL+D to add site to bookmarks, right? Your Geek too! Geeks know this kind of stuff!
Thanks for visiting my blog.
T.