ServerBuddies Support Blog

Configuring Sudo

To run as root use the su or sudo commands. Avoid using root for any non-administration usage, since the root account makes it easy to create security or data risks. If you frequently use a single user desktop, you may find it convenient to configure sudo so you can use the same password for both root and your regular account. To do this, follow this procedure:

Become the root user using the su command. Enter the password for the root account when prompted.

Run this command, using your user account name in the place of “sampleusername”:

Note that when sudo prompts you for a password, it expects your user password, not root’s.

The rebuild_phpconf script on your server allows you to udpate your server’s php.conf file (located at /usr/local/cpanel/bin/rebuild_phpconf). By doing this, you can change Apache’s PHP handler configuration, change the default version of PHP used by your server, and enable or disable the suEXEC feature.

Note: This script offers nearly the same functionality as the WHM Configure PHP and suEXEC feature. Users more comfortable with a graphical interface may prefer that method.

To see a list of all options and arguments for this script, type the following from the command line:

Configuring Reverse DNS in WHM

Reverse DNS uses pointer records (PTR) to convert IP addresses into domain names. This is the opposite of forward DNS, which uses A records to convert domain names into IP addresses.

First, add a new DNS zone file. You can accomplish this using the Add a DNS Zone feature in the DNS Functions section of your WHM interface (Main >> DNS Functions >> Add a DNS Zone).

To continue, enter the IP address and proper reverse DNS zone name in the appropriate fields.

To properly format the Domain field in the interface.

Take the first 3 octets of the IP address, Reverse them, and Affix in-addr.arpa to the end. So, for example, the reverse DNS entry for 192.168.0.1 is 0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. After you have filled out these 2 fields, click the Add Zone button.

One you have created your zone file, you can edit it. You can do this using the WHM Edit DNS Zone screen (Main >> DNS Functions >> Edit DNS Zone). Your zone file should already contain an NS entry for every authoritative nameserver associated with your server. To finish this process, we need to add a PTR record for each IP address we wish to name in the last octet of 192.168.0.

After the reverse DNS zone has propagated, run a test to ensure that you have properly configured reverse DNS. To do so, you can use the following command:

If you have properly configured your reverse DNS zone file, the output should resemble the following:

Configuring Global Backup Settings in Plesk

If you serve numerous Web sites, you may want to configure the backing up process so that it does not consume much server resources.

To reduce the server load and set the disk space usage policy:

1. Go to Home > Server group title menu > Backup Settings.
2. Specify the number of simultaneous backup processes in the Maximum number of simultaneously running scheduled backup processes box. The default value is 10. Type a lesser value.

3. Select the Run scheduled backup processes with low priority check box.
4. Select the Do not compress backup files check box to disable compression.
5. Click OK.

6. To prevent the backing up processes from consuming all available disk space on the server, do the following:
1. Access the server’s file system, locate and open the file [Parallels Plesk Panel installation directory]/admin/share/pmmcli/pmmcli-rc with a text editor.
2. Locate in this file the line FREE_DISK_SPACE 20, and in place of 20, specify the amount of free disk space in megabytes that must be reserved.
3. Save the file.

Doc Source: parallels.com/Plesk/

Modify global setting for the Apache server in the main Apache configuration file:

Virtual Host Structure and Permissions

Vhost permissions should satisfy the following conditions:

Home directory should be readable by apache, psaadm and psaftp.
The user cannot change some catalogues of their directories.
Other users should not have access to the user’s home directory.