There are a lot of smart people out there who know way too much about computers and software and stuff, like this guy: ‘Perishable Press‘. So, can someone clever please tell me why this simple url hangs up a bunch of seemingly dissimilar web servers:

My banana was once part of a bunch very similar to this one

Here’s the deal – when someone asks for a webpage on Scamdex that doesn’t exist, it shoots me a quick email to tell me about it. That way I can see if anything is broken and if anyone is trying to hack my site. My normal response to obviousl hack-attempts  is to block the IP address or use .htaccess rewrite rules to send them to an oh-so-friendly  ‘go away page‘ .

In this case, the URL carries a payload that is itself a  link to a file on a remote site, which it hopes I will allow to run on my server. The code (which is reproduced in it’s entirety here) will, if allowed to run, return the word ‘FeelCoMz’ to the ’sKriptKiDee’, aka ‘Wanker’  on the sending end.

<?php /* Fx29ID */ echo("FeeL"."CoMz"); die("FeeL"."CoMz"); /* Fx29ID */ ?>

So… it didn’t work, I trapped it and it raised a red flag, but then why, when I try the URL does it make a browser stand blinking like a deer in the proverbial headlights for 120 seconds before falling flat on it’s back?

Analyzing the url gets me to this reduction of required parts:

* any .php file path.
* any query string, that contains a ‘http://’ in
* must have a file extension such as txt, gif, png etc.
* must have the trailing ‘?’

will cause the same problem on an awful lot of famous name servers. For example, including mine: scamdex.com, uniplex.com, google.com, microsoft.com, amazon.com etc etc.

For example, in the following link, everything except ‘www.amazon.com’ is made up

http://www.amazon.com/a.php?b=http://c.gif?

but it still exhibits the same behaviour – WTF is going on?

and why, oh why can’t I detect it in my .htaccess file?

First person to:
1. Tell me why it’s happening.
2. Tell me how to detect it and stop it happening.
3. Tell me why Google hates me.

gets a really major serious prize like my personal desktop banana, or this lovely (chipped) coffee mug with the name of a football club I don’t support on it – or even my second best earphones.

Good luck!

_________________________________

Still no replies and it’s still happening…. where have all the gurus gone?

Here’s a little utility I knocked together using Yahoo’s Pipes (http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/). It allows you to aggregate, sort and filter feeds from various sources to make one combined info thingy.

http://pipes.yahoo.com/scamdex/scampipe

Let me know what you think – I can add a couple of extra data feeds in, let me know if you have some to include.

I am an old Unix dude, I have installed more different versions of Unix than most people – Everything from Sco Xenix/286 thru to Centos5.2 and I don’t usually have much problems – but as time wears on, my brainDisk is starting to squeal and it’s not as fast at random access as it used to be so I was really happy when I rented a server with Cpanel/WHM installed on it.
For those who don’t know, Cpanel is the web-based interface to everything you will never learn on a Unix server – plus, the WHM super system allows you to carve off a chunk and sell it or give it away to your pals, reasonably confident that they won’t/can’t screw it up.
Add in virtual web/mail/log server management and lots of useful pre-installed tools and you have a system where you rarely have to get your hands dirty under the #hood.

Well, I love Cpanel now and I have grown to rely on it (curses!) so when it comes to creating my own server, so I can save money on a dedicated one I find I need it to get things done (and my old stuff transferred.

The problem with CP is that it costs $$money. between $30 and $48/month. and. I. just. don’t. want. to. pay. that. any. more….. so….

Piracy is out – mainly because you need to register the license with CP and also because that’s bad!:’(

Perhaps I could install it, setup my system the way I want and then after a month or so, hand it back??

well, no apparently – most people (Including themselves) seem to be of the opinion that to uninstall CP, you should really re-install Linux…. kind of defeats my object here!

so…. alternatives, anyone?

There are a few – some other commercial (pay $$ for) such as DirectAdmin and some Public Domain ones (Web-CP, WebMin/VirtualMin). So I started evaluating these free Cpanel Alternatives ….

1. WebMin/VirtualMin

Looks like it will do the job – only one of the alts that I’ve heard of and actually used before. Installs easily enough and looks nice – has a fine range of functionality but what lets it down is it’s non-simplicity. Cpanel’s approach is to show you a bunch of things that you may want to do and asks sensible questions (with usually relevant tooltips close by) so help you accomplish your requirements.  WebMin takes the ‘I’ll help you to write the configuration files correctly’ approach – you really have to know what you’re doing and in a lot of cases, the input fields are just blank with no clue as to what to put there.

WebMin Configuring Backup Example Screenshot

This probably highlights the major difference between CPanel/WHM and the rest of the Server Admin systems out there – CP/WHM does some pretty radical things to your server when you install it and this is why it’s so hard to uninstall. The other systems kind of leave things as they are and just act as configuration helpers. As an example, see the two screenshots of the ‘backup’ functions.

Cpanel Domain Owner Backup Page

2. Web-CP

Much, much, harder to install and harder to find the installation instructions too. but seems pretty good so far.

I had problems with the PHP startup scripts being written with DOS line endings which confused the life out of me for a while until I found it.  Still not able to start the system up but suspect it’s something to do with the line that reads:

$args = trim(next($HTTP_SERVER_VARS["argv"]));

# Shouldn’t that just be ARGV for shell scripts?)

… I’ll continue and let you know how I get on.