How do I isolate apps from one another?

I have several apps installed that have nothing to do with each other. I would like to isolate each of these apps - and their respective websites - from each other in the file structure. That way, if one site gets hit with some malicious code or malware, it is isolated from the rest of my sites, instead of infecting every single site in my account.

How do I accomplish this?

I have attempted to create an SSH user account, then install the app in that account (i.e. Wordpress). I then created a symbolic link to the other folder, but, of course, the main user does not have rights to the other users folder.

Anyone have a solution that works?

Thanks in advance, David

accounts apps

asked Mar 21 '12 at 11:01

DaveFlys
1

One Answer:

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You can not create a second user and than symlink to a directory within it since you can not symlink outside of your home directory with our shared servers. This limitation is in place for security of the whole file-system, otherwise anyone could symlink to your home directory.

There is no way to isolate your sites from each other and use the shared servers in this way since they all execute as your user.

The only way to isolate them is to build independent Apache stacks for each site executed as secondary users and than create 'custom applications' to have each app's port assigned by the main user. This way the server is executed as the second user and any code it executes is too.

answered Mar 21 '12 at 17:09

johns ♦♦
3404●2●7

But, if taking a dedicated server, would it be possible to simulate a shared environment creating as many users as the applications to be isolated and create each application into its user account?

(Mar 23 '12 at 06:21) robertotra

No, the same rule applies at dedicated servers too at the moment. You can only have one primary user per machine.

(Mar 23 '12 at 06:31) iliasr ♦♦

Thinking a bit on it, I guess I understand the reason for this policy on dedicated server: by managing primary users, an unfair customer could resell your hosting services without your knowing... Prevention is better than cure :)

(Mar 25 '12 at 16:35) robertotra

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Asked: Mar 21 '12 at 11:01

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Last updated: Mar 25 '12 at 16:35

How do I isolate apps from one another?

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