Topic awaiting preservation: Greetings & Salutations + ?

Hello, been lurking around here for several years now... finally decided to come out of the shadows... though granted it's because I finally have a question.

I'm part of a small team that runs our own server for a college radio station and I'm looking for something like phpnuke or slashdot's code that we can use for our website. We want an interactive site that the DJ staff and students can submit news items, concerts, events, etc.

What would be a great set up to accomplish that & remain as secure as possible for the least amount of money?

(technical info)
Our little server is running the latest version of Red Hat, php, perl, and mySql on it.

(back story if your interested follows)
I had installed phpNuke but our server got hacked, (though that wasn't how they got in) but needless to say I'm a bit edgy about what we use now. Mainly because there are some members of our student gov. who believe that the money spent on the station is a waste. For about 4 years now they have been trying to take away our funding and they succeeded this last time... then a creative law student found a loop hole for us... so we're in a bit of a crunch... this year most likely they will succeed as the same reps who went after us last year were re-elected and our station will die, unless we can rally student, faculty and administrative support and alter how we are funded. A key component to our strategy for this is our online presence.

Granted we won't be able to guarantee that the server won't get hacked again, though we've got someone who's volunteered to try and keep up to date as possible on security issues... but we are seriously under funded, under staffed, and under the gun. We can't afford to have any down time of anything this year.

So, any thoughts suggestions or what not would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
=)

Well if you are going for the PHPNuke/Slash look then those two are probably your best solutions, with SlashCode being the most robust of the two.



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

1st go to your computer science department and see what they think of an internship for server upkeep. They will prolly be down for that and you will get some added free labor. Keep the number of interns down at like 1 or 2 since you will have better control over it.

Next get away from Windows. Try a *nix build.

I reccomend using PHP/Apache/MySQL and then using PHPNuke or SlashCode. They both work great.

As for security, do a search on google on PHP security and you will come up with some good things.

This solution only costs you as much as the computer does since all the software is open source and free. Just keep up to date on security and close down the systems you are not using. Like don't have send mail active if you are not setting it up as an email server.

um er mage he's runing redhat



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

nah, WM is right... running a Windows box with a red hat on it doesn't make it more secure.... you should try taping some string to it so it has a lot of slack to wear...

aww....... geez..... I crack me up....


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Ya, so um... I read the whole thing I swear. I'm gonna just walk quiet like out of here.

You've inspired me to find a Red Hat for our box to wear.

hmm... thanks for the idea of trying to get a couple of interns from our CS dept.

And when you're done, post the URL here and we'll give it billions of hits and make it popular!

Well, maybe not billions, but at least a dozen.

ooo.... I'll have to make it extra spiffy then.

I think I'm going to use Slash's code this time instead of phpNuke. Seems that all the server security guys around here are shy of php anyway...

satach: also when you get the site up and running, drop us a note if you want some tips design or some tests for normal operation on it. I would be glad to help.



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postnuke seems to have better attention to security patches and updates than phpnuke IMHO (tried both)

there is neither Being nor non-Being, only Nothing, which is neither Being nor Non-Being

Hey Mu Satach, I can totally empathize with your probllem. I work at the for the Student Unions at the U of Minnesota, and we are funded by student fees. Every year we have to justify our spending to a committee who inevitably fail to comprehend our budget. Because they are just students with no experience they always view our complicated budget as somehow deceptive and overblown despite the fact that we plan and implement 500+ public events a year, operate 2 buildings on campus, offer advising and office space to student groups, and run all kinds of services like 3 post offices, a computer lab, outdoor gear rental, etc. Luckily in our case we have administrative support, so major decisions against us have always been vetoed.

I'm sure your situation is more difficult since you are a smaller and less-recognized organization. It's hard to imagine our campus station's budget getting slashed like that. Rallying student support seems like the way to go.

-jiblet

Oh man... I totally forgot about postNuke...

*smacks forehead*

hey jiblet, yep... working with student gov is fun! Every fall they over spend, every spring they slash like mad. What really irks the staff here is that we've been trying to get them involved with the station for years so they know what we do, how we allocate our funds, etc. but seldom do we have an active participant from them. And the irony is that we have a larger listening audience now than before they started slamming us.

Oh well... live and learn.

[This message has been edited by Mu Satach (edited 07-19-2002).]