The loading time of a website gets a lot of attention these days, at least since google said, that the loading speed is a factor for the ranking position. With compression of text files (CSS, HTML, JS) you can speed up the performance easily.
Continue reading
Tag Archives: apache
Mandrake 9.2 and Apache Open Proxy Bug
the standard apache config of this linux version can cause serious trouble
The problem:
Linux Mandrake 9.2 uses  apache 2.0.47 by default – but take a careful look at your apache config files, because the server is set up by default with an open proxy port – so your box could be “hijacked” by spammers, who use your machine as their own proxy server.
More info about mod_proxy: http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_proxy.html
I became attentive to the hijacking of my system, because the network performance was suddenly very poor, and the http – log of apache showed thousands of lines of “GET” and “CONNECT” requests to foreign domains (mostly porn sites) – this resulted in a massive overload on the server.
Check the open proxy server
To check if your box does really act as an open proxy server, just connect via telnet and try a “GET” request to another adress.
telnet www.yourserver.com 80 GET http://www.google.com
If the request returns the source code of www.google.com, your server acts as an open proxy!
Solution:
In Mandrake 9.2, the proxy – configrations can be found in  /etc/httpd/conf.d/30_mod_proxy.conf – please check your settings with the following settings, and your server will lock out the bad guys.
-------------------------------------- LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so # LoadModule proxy_connect_module modules/mod_proxy_connect.so #LoadModule proxy_ftp_module modules/mod_proxy_ftp.so LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so # # Proxy Server directives. Uncomment the following lines to # enable the proxy server: # ProxyRequests Off # Order deny,allow Deny from all Allow from 127.0.0.1 # # Enable/disable the handling of HTTP/1.1 "Via:" headers. # ("Full" adds the server version; "Block" removes all outgoing Via: headers) # Set to one of: Off | On | Full | Block # ProxyVia Off # End of proxy directives.
---------------------------------------
If your server has already been hijacked and its adress shows up in spammer lists, the requests will not stop immediatly, this will take a few days (up to two weeks)
In my case, everything worked fine after 4 days.
The problem:
Linux Mandrake 9.2 uses  apache 2.0.47 by default – but take a careful look at your apache config files, because the server is set up by default with an open proxy port – so your box could be “hijacked” by spammers, who use your machine as their own proxy server.
More info about mod_proxy: http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_proxy.html
I became attentive to the hijacking of my system, because the network performance was suddenly very poor, and the http – log of apache showed thousands of lines of “GET” and “CONNECT” requests to foreign domains (mostly porn sites) – this resulted in a massive overload on the server.
Check the open proxy server
To check if your box does really act as an open proxy server, just connect via telnet and try a “GET” request to another adress.
telnet www.yourserver.com 80 GET http://www.google.com
If the request returns the source code of www.google.com, your server acts as an open proxy!
Solution:
In Mandrake 9.2, the proxy – configrations can be found in  /etc/httpd/conf.d/30_mod_proxy.conf – please check your settings with the following settings, and your server will lock out the bad guys.
-------------------------------------- LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so # LoadModule proxy_connect_module modules/mod_proxy_connect.so #LoadModule proxy_ftp_module modules/mod_proxy_ftp.so LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so # # Proxy Server directives. Uncomment the following lines to # enable the proxy server: # ProxyRequests Off # Order deny,allow Deny from all Allow from 127.0.0.1 # # Enable/disable the handling of HTTP/1.1 "Via:" headers. # ("Full" adds the server version; "Block" removes all outgoing Via: headers) # Set to one of: Off | On | Full | Block # ProxyVia Off # End of proxy directives.
---------------------------------------
If your server has already been hijacked and its adress shows up in spammer lists, the requests will not stop immediatly, this will take a few days (up to two weeks)
In my case, everything worked fine after 4 days.