Re: [sheflug] Apache, shtml and php config. problem

[Alex Hudson <home [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2006-08-14 at 10:57 +0100, Lesley Binks wrote:
> Just for what it's worth (which probably isn't very much) I don't 
> believe in this 'thou shalt not edit the config files' vein of thought 
> at all. 

Well, just so people understand the reasoning behind this - it's not
particularly dogmatic.

If you're compiling your own Apache, you're pretty much free to do what
you want. If you're using a packaged Apache, though, it's best to stick
to how it's supposed to be done. A number of the configuration files
either come with the package, or are edited by machine. 

So, for example, if you install PHP, it will automatically set itself up
in Apache. If you upgrade Apache, it will automatically install the new
configuration (new mime types, for example). If you install phpmyadmin,
or a similar web-app, it will install it's own configuration file and
set itself up. It can do this because of the layout of the configuration
files.

Now, if you edit the configuration files, the packaging system will
notice, and it will leave Apache's config alone - it realises that
you've touched the files and doesn't want to destroy your edits.
However, that does mean that you miss out on the good stuff in newer
versions of the package - you then have to do everything manually,
rather than have it done for you, and that usually leads to mistakes and
broken configuration.

> I tried Ubuntu early on, it's nice enough but I port scanned the box and 
> found an open port < 1024.  Posted somewhere on an ubuntu list and they 
> said 'they needed this port open for things they had to do'.

Do you remember what this port is?

I don't want to say you're wrong, but by default Ubuntu ships with no
ports open at all, let alone < 1024. The only thing which is possibly
available is a UDP port when you've configured your network via DHCP -
and plainly you can't have a DHCP network unless you listen to DHCP
requests ;)

In this regard, ubuntu is substantially "better" (for whatever value you
place on having no ports open) than most other distributions.

Cheers,

Alex.


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