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our marketing droids would like a blog on our domain. I checked out several, and while MovableType seems to have the least vulnerabilities, Wordpress has won the race.

I am very sceptical of installing a software tool which is exploited this often on our main servers. However the powers that be want the url of the blog to be www.domain.com/blog/ instead of blog.domain.com (which would of course allow me to run the blog on a cheap VPS somewhere).

I can always install Wordpress, run through the hardening and hope for the best. Or does anyone have an idea how I can run the blog in a subdirectory while keeping it separate, without impacting the functionality? I was playing around with proxying in a htaccess etc. without results. We are running LAMP and have a BIG IP load balancer in front, if that helps...

I am scared of attackers reaching our database through Wordpress (despite me using typical precautions like different usernames).

Any ideas?

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  • There is a WordPress StackExchange site winding it's way through the process at Area51. I invite any WordPress users/admins here to check it out and "commit" if you think it would be helpful. I did! area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/1500/wordpress-answers
    – tomjedrz
    Jul 24, 2010 at 16:25
  • haha, security and wordpress in the same sentence. If you use wordpress your screwed and there is nothing you can do about it. I have looked at the code and i have reported vulnerabilities that project, their idea of secuirty is a joke.
    – Rook
    Jul 24, 2010 at 19:14

2 Answers 2

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Depends on the environment, and this assumes you run Linux and Apache, probably some LAMP solution if it is common of what I hear about.

Your explanation makes it sound like you know what you are doing, but have you considered a chroot/jail/whatever you want to call it in your OS of choice jargon? Of course, properly feeding everything into the chroot environment is a different animal, and that is where rubber meets the road for you. Since you are talking production environment, it could be a problem for performance and stability I suppose (then again, I see lots of docs insisting lower-level production services like BIND DNS run in chroot, so I doubt it is that bad; I mean in the sense of running another chroot-ed Apache instance alongside your other one). You might want to start here for an explanation of chroot for Apache. I assume if you can do that and MySQL, you are set.

However, all this seems like overkill. You said htaccess, so it definitely sounds like Apache to me. You have load balancers. In my mind, it sounds much easier to "have your cake and eat it too." I mean, just re-write the urls with your conf files of Apache (which takes only a little skill and testing) or get the load balancer to do it (I don't have one, but some co-workers have an F5 and they say it can do this thing at a low level, which is fun). Either way, take your pick, the first paragraph directly addresses your question. Happy hunting.

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  • chroot is not a magic fix all. If you can become root inside it, you can break out of it.
    – Andrew
    Aug 16, 2010 at 22:42
  • I would imagine nothing in IT is a magic fix all, to be blunt. A chroot is only easily broken out of if you do a poor job of configuring it. I am using unixwiz.net/techtips/chroot-practices.html as a reference but the ease of what you suggests means giving someone root access inside the chroot, no? I have wanted to learn more, and your profile make it seems like you have a lot of experience. Do you have any other good chroot references?
    – songei2f
    Aug 18, 2010 at 15:08
  • Messed up link syntax, my bad
    – songei2f
    Aug 18, 2010 at 15:09
  • If you want to make sure someone is included in a "comment conversation", you can use the @ symbol and at least the first 4 letters of their username, like @alharaka. That way if you want clarification on something, they will get notified in their messages. I should also mention that only the first user you tag in this manner will be notified, you can't do multiple people in one comment.
    – Holocryptic
    Aug 19, 2010 at 0:08
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Provided you stay on top of updates and don't install any weird plugins WordPress is relatively secure. It is also relatively isolated .. the worst someone who hacks WP will do is deface the blog.

Three thoughts ...

1- Put your foot down about the WordPress requiring a separate sub-domain. Despite WP being relatively secure, keeping it isolated will keep your life simple down the road.

2- Implement nginx in front of the load balancer, and have it proxy the \blog requests to blog.. This is a good long term topology.

3- Can the load balancer be configured to proxy/rewrite? If you specify the load balancer you might get some help there.

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