ServerBuddies Support Blog

About FastCGI

FastCGI is simple because it is actually CGI with only a few extensions.

Like CGI, FastCGI is also language-independent. For instance, FastCGI provides a way to improve the performance of the thousands of Perl applications that have been written for the Web.

Like CGI, FastCGI runs applications in processes isolated from the core Web server, which provides greater security than APIs. (APIs link application code into the core Web server, which means that a bug in one API-based application can corrupt another application or the core server; a malicious API-based application can, for example, steal key security secrets from another application or the core server.)

Although FastCGI cannot duplicate the universality of CGI overnight, the FastCGI developers are committed to propagating FastCGI as an open standard. To that end, free FastCGI application libraries (C/C++, Java, Perl, Tcl) and upgrade modules for popular free servers (Apache, ISS, Lighttpd) are available.

Like CGI, FastCGI is not tied to the internal architecture of any Web server and is therefore stable even when server technology changes. An API reflects the internal architecture of a Web server, so when that architecture changes, so does the API

Support for partitions larger than 2.2 TB with BIOS

Installations can now be configured to boot from hard drive partitions larger than 2.2 TB using select BIOS models that support the newer GUID Partition Table (GPT). Legacy BIOS implementations previously limited ability to use large partitions on systems that were not using the newer Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI).
The initial ramdisk file on 64-bit PowerPC and 64-bit IBM POWER Series systems is now named initrd.img. In previous releases, it was named ramdisk.image.gz.

PHP hardening using session.cookie_httponly & session.referer_check

PHP hardening using session.cookie_httponly & session.referer_check

Setting this value to 1 prevents JavaScript from accessing PHP session cookies. This can help prevent attackers from stealing session cookies. However, you may be unable to use this directive if your users utilize PHP session cookies via JavaScript.

This parameter allows PHP to check HTTP referrer values. This allows you to specify a domain, ensuring that session information is only passed internally during the time a user is working with a web application. This will prevent your users from accidentally exposing session information that may allow malicious users to follow links and steal a session.

Support for device identification using WWIDs during installation

Fibre Channel and Serial Attach SCSI (SAS) devices can be now specified by a World Wide Name (WWN) or a World Wide Identifier (WWID) for unattended installations. WWN is part of the IEEE standard which makes it easier to identify storage devices during installation for users utilizing Storage Area Networks (SAN) and other advanced network topologies. When a storage device is attached to a server using multiple physical paths for redundancy or improved performance, WWN for any of these paths is sufficient to identify the device.

Mount and Access NTFS Partition

NTFS-3G is an open source cross-platform implementation of the Microsoft Windows NTFS file system with read-write support. NTFS-3G often uses the FUSE file system interface, so it can run unmodified on many different operating systems. It is runnable on Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenSolaris, and Mac OS X.

On Ubuntu / Debian

Usage

If there was no error during installation then the NTFS volume can be mounted in read-write mode for everybody as follows. Unmount the volume if it had already been mounted, replace /dev/sda1 and /mnt/windows, if needed.

Please see the NTFS-3G Manual for more options and examples.

You can also make NTFS to be mounted during boot by adding the following line to the end of the /etc/fstab file: