Security problem hosting a website on my seedboxes server..

**tinman** · May 2nd, 2012, 12:59 PM

Hey guys I hope somebody can help me with this..

I have a Kimsufi 2G with a seedbox installed and I have a website in the root of the web-folder (/var/www). I'm running lighttpd.

The problem is that my website has personnel info and can be reached by typing http://<ip-address>/ as well as from my website url. My fear is that somebody I am seeding a torrent to will be able to find my website just from typing my ip address in their web browser...

I am with https://www.123-reg.co.uk/ but I can't seem to find a way in the control panel to point my domain name to a specific folder on the server, I have got it set at the moment to point it to my IP. I could solve the problem if somebody could please tell me of point my domain to a folder in my web folder and that way I could have an 'Under Construction' page in the root. Eg www.website.com would point to /var/www/website but still appear as http://www.website.com/index.html

I hope somebody understands what I am trying to do and can help me fix this problem please?

**oreja** · May 2nd, 2012, 01:19 PM

You cannot create a dns record that points to a folder on your local server - this is impossible because the dns protocol does not work like that
DNS Records of whatever type(A,AAAA,Cname whatever ) are there to resolve to ip addresses, not to local folders on a server.

What you could do to hide atleast a little bit is create subdomain in your control panel and host your page there.
Then you could leave the default page for the /var/www folder and when somebody enters http://yourip they would see the default page.
Apart from that, I would never host any personal website on my seedbox. never ever ! :)

**tinman** · May 2nd, 2012, 02:00 PM

@oreja Thanks for the info..

I may have found a work-around, although I don't know how it might affect my website in regards to google. I have set up a temp. redirect (302) as this allows Framing which I think would look more proffesional (as it forwarded to http://<IP-ADRESS>/folder/). It will take up to 24 hours for my changes to take effect, so I'm hoping it works how I want.

If anybody know a better way or a way of doing it using a permanent redirect (301) so the domain name instead of the ip appears in the url bar then I all ears.. :)

**teinv** · May 2nd, 2012, 03:19 PM

Not sure i understand, just add an under construction page to your www directory then make a www/mysite directory. your "mysite" directory will need 777 i believe, to be viewed on the internet. Double check me on that.

**tinman** · May 2nd, 2012, 05:36 PM

Originally Posted by teinv

Not sure i understand, just add an under construction page to your www directory then make a www/mysite directory. your "mysite" directory will need 777 i believe, to be viewed on the internet. Double check me on that.

The control manager of my domain provider does not allow for a subdirectory only IP address. When you buy a domain from a provider they ask for an IP of where you want you domain to point to.. I completly understand what I need to do but there is no way to point my web address directly to a sub-directory in /var/www

**DaPratsta** · May 6th, 2012, 06:36 PM

Change from lighttpd to Apache, then you can specify which folder is the web folder and anything going through port 80 (HTTP) or 443 (HTTPS) goes to that /www/ folder (or whatever you specify). I have the same seedbox and use Apache to overcome this.

**Wonder56901** · May 6th, 2012, 11:00 PM

What DaPratsta is correct there may be a slightly better way to do it. If you're using Apache, you can then use .htaccess files to redirect users that are coming in to your IP address (instead of a www.address) to be redirected to specific web page (eg. Under construction, or this site does not exist, or whatever you choose). You'll have to google .htaccess since its been ages since I've touched one of those files.

Is there any particular reason you're using lighttpd? While its great for high traffic sites, it's often overkill for lesser used sites. A properly programmed and cached site using Apache can do wonders these days.

**teinv** · May 7th, 2012, 09:31 AM

Originally Posted by Kitkatra

The control manager of my domain provider does not allow for a subdirectory only IP address. When you buy a domain from a provider they ask for an IP of where you want you domain to point to.. I completly understand what I need to do but there is no way to point my web address directly to a sub-directory in /var/www

yes you are correct. Just to clarify a little more. A domain provider does not point to your website, they will list the DNS servers for your website. Often times, they will let you use their DNS server by default. But you can easily use your own DNS server as well. It is then the DNS server which will translate your domain and sub-domains to an ip address. This is usually done through A records (List of DNS record types - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Since you only have 1 ip address, it is fine to use your domain providers simple DNS server. so you only need to change settings on your domain provider only if you change ip address of your web-server.

Sub-directories on the other hand are handled by your web server. The configuration of your web-server is usually done through the shell by editing the appropriate configuration file. Depastra mentioned changing web servers to make the configuration easier. That may make some sense, but I don't see why one setup is easier then the other. I'm sure both should work and it should only take some light googling.

**tinman** · June 12th, 2012, 11:25 AM

I decided the best way would be to order a new IP and bind it to the new website so thats its completely seperate from my torrenting.. for an extra 1 Euro a month its probably worth it.. this is how I did it with the help of Lardo..

1. Order new failover IP from OVH and wait for email confirmation.
2. Go to the OVH Manager > services > ip fail over > add an ip fail over and follow instuctions.
3. Login as root and use their help page OVH : IpAlias to assign the new IP to the network interface card.
4. Login to 123-Reg and direct the domain name to the new IP.
5. Move the website to a new folder on the server.
6. Add the following to /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

Code:

server.port = 80
server.bind = "<IP_OF_SERVER>"
$SERVER["socket"] == "<NEW_IP_YOU_WANT_TO_USE>" {
server.document-root = "<NEW_PATH_TO_WEBSITE>"
}

Now my website has a completely different IP to my rutorrent and if I type the ip of my server it just comes up with my 'Under Constuction' page..

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