Identifying Areas of Trouble
Trouble on your website and systems can occur in many forms. In this part of your baseline report, you identify weaknesses and correct them. This may be in an out-of-date extension or a misconfigured setting. The goal is to get the information captured and the problems removed.
The areas of concern are the operating system (and add-ons), the CMS (and its add-ons), the server/hardware, and the network.
Checking the Operating System and Add-ons
By and large, next to your CMS, the operating system is an area where you should focus a large amount of attention. If you are not managing the updates, or if your host is not, then chances are good your system will have some vulnerability that could affect you.
Document the various installed applications and modules of your operating system, and record the information in your baseline report.
The following commands will enable you to determine the version numbers of the installed server modules MySQL, Apache, Java, PHP, Python, and the Linux Kernel:
- MySQL — mysql -v
- Apache — httpd -v
- Java — java - version
- PHP — php - v
- Python — python -v
- Linux — cat /etc/*-rel*
Note that all of these commands require you to log in to the shell (SSH) on your server.
The Linux command should work on many distributions. However, if it doesn't work, the following commands will likely provide you the information you seek. These ...
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