[sf-lug] Hacked RHEL4/PHP4 server

[Tom Haddon]

On Thu, 2008-05-22 at 11:11 -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Tom Haddon (tom at greenleaftech.net):
> 
> > Yeah, on the one hand I do want to find out what happened. On the other,
> > I'm not (yet) being paid to do so. I have a call with the non-profit
> > early next week to discuss next steps, so that may change, in which case
> > I'll be doing a more thorough investigation.
> 
> You may hear a lot of resistance to the necessary steps, if you continue
> to believe they've been root-compromised and make the obvious proposal
> (for which, see the CERT document I referred to).  People don't want to
> hear "Sorry, but this will be painful", and want to hear about that
> magic wand they're sure you have hidden somewhere.
> 

Yeah, I'd be surprised if they say "sure, take as long as you need, and
we'll be happy to pay for it". :)

> 
> > On Thu, 2008-05-22 at 09:12 -0700, Asheesh Laroia wrote:
> 
> > > Out of curiosity, which virtualization technology?
> > 
> > Not sure, I'm afraid. This seems a bit vague and marketing-type-speak:
> > 
> > http://www.verio.com/vps-technology/
> 
> Oddly enough, I answered this question a couple of months ago on...
> SF-LUG's mailing list.  (Note that they have both a FreeBSD-based "VPS"
> offering and a Linux-based one.)  Replying to Jim Stockford:
> 
> 
> Hmm, in case you were unclear on this, Verio is not a Linux
> distribution, but rather a huge nationwide ISP headquartered in the East
> Coast -- one that bought a large number of smaller but much more
> technically competent local providers in past decades, including (in
> S.F.) Best Internet and The Little Garden / TLGnet.  
> 
> What they appear to be selling _here_ is Internet virtual host services
> using Xen under RHEL5.
> 
> Basically, they're advertising that they're another among dozens of
> virthost vendors.  
> 
> That fluff about their "deep roots in open source (FreeBSD)" merely
> refers to them having _bought_ Best Internet, who used to employ Matt
> Dillon, and who had their infrastructure mostly on FreeBSD -- but those
> "deep roots" withered and died with the buyout.  (As former Best.com and
> TLG customers will testify, Verio screwed up the firms it bought out.)
> 
> The phrasing about the company being "inventor of Virtual Private Server
> (VPS) technology" appears to be just a reference to Verio (and Best
> Internet before it) being one of innumerable firms commercialising the
> jail(2) virtual-host syscall technology included in every release of
> FreeBSD since 4.0-RELEASE.  That code was _not_ developed by Verio, but
> rather by ServeTheWeb.com and Safeport Network Services.  See:
> http://phk.freebsd.dk/pubs/sane2000-jail.pdf
> 
> The phrase "VERIO Linux VPS" appears to just mean Xen under RHEL5, plus
> some sort of proprietary "control panel" Web thing -- with little
> connection to their of the term "Virtual Private Server" under FreeBSD.
> 
> So, just a sales job from a mammoth firm trying to take credit for other
> people's work.

Par for the course, really. Although I did almost choke/spill my drink
when reading that Verio invented VPS technology...

> 
> 
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