Day: July 22, 2010

New target
Checking the WASD log files, I found mainly one attempt do do harm:
"POST /contact.php HTTP/1.1" and paging back, I found the event started about 20-Jun-2010, and seems to be a follow-up of "GET /pingserver.php HTTP/1.1" that has been around now for a while.
Since that day, the number of attempts have increased – and I estimate that last week, there have been over 10.000 such requests. Apart from quite a lot of attempts to abuse phpmyadmin – any version 2.x – and none would succeed since though I have it on the system, it’s not available on port 80 – for obvious reasons (nor is it installed in a directory “phpmyadmin.major.minor.whatever”).
Typical: all requests try to access /scripts/setup.php… Who didn’t remove it from the site deserves to be hacked. It’s in the manual you should REMOVE that script…..
Well, it’s all rejected 🙂
Performance
To be expected – with twice as much memory and a faster processor (though the clock is the same: proof that MHz in itself doesn’t mean anything) you may expect better performance. Where the old hardware (with 256 MB of memory) consumed about 25% of page-file space, the new environment hardly tips 5. PHP seems to run better (and faster) as well, and the same applies to Python – it’s MUCH faster – almost instantaneous.
More good news on performance: we’ll get fiber some time – earliest about November, but some time next year is more feasible. It means that my upload connection – the one you experience accessing the site – will grow 10-fold: 10Mb in stead of 1 (and often less), potentially 50. And, when cost wouldn’t be a problem, it could be extended to 100, or 200 bps – but the price tag is significant.