Web hosting security as a topic seems to be everywhere these days, and it’s not only discussed by big companies but also by small businesses and almost all of the individuals who have an online presence; all of this is because of stolen information and data loss, so the security topic shouldn’t be taken lightly.
In this article, we’ll learn more about hosting security in general, but we’ll talk more specifically about VPS security, and the best ways to keep your VPS secure, so let’s get started.
Change Your VPS Default SSH Login
Most VPS users use Secure Shell or SSH to log into their VPS server as a method for a remote computer connection; the risk with SSH is to be a victim of a brute-force attack. This attack means that someone tries to log into your SSH by trying a variety of common passwords. So, if you use SSH as a method to log into your VPS server, then we recommend you to change the default SSH Port and login password to a strong customized password in order to secure your VPS.
As you probably know, a strong password consists of a combination of lower and upper-case characters, numbers, and symbols. This way you will secure your SSH and protect yourself from “brute-force attacks”.
Keep Your Software Up-to-Date
Most of you probably know that software updates contain security patches most of the time, so it’s necessary to keep your VPS software up-to-date, and luckily for you, all it takes is a few clicks to run an update for your VPS operating system.
We recommend you to automate this process. It depends on your operating system, but you can automate this process by using cron jobs, which is a Linux-based utility for scheduling commands and scripts on your VPS server to run automatically on a specific date and time for a specific number of times, so it’s an easy thing to do but one of the most important tips for securing your VPS.
The last thing to be mentioned here, if you use any (CMS) Content Management System like WordPress, Joomla, and so on, don’t forget to monitor for its updates and install them as soon as they’re available, too, besides all of your server-side updates.
Always Monitor Your VPS Server Logs
Monitoring your VPS server logs keeps you informed if anything happened with your VPS server, so when you track your VPS system logs and software, you will be better prepared for any issues that could happen. Monitor all of the server events, resources, traffic levels, users’ activities, software-generated errors, and warnings; this attitude helps you to be prepared all the time for any issues that could happen in the future. We recommend you set up email notifications for any server errors and warnings to have real-time monitoring of your VPS server.
Don’t Forget to Set Up Your Firewall
We don’t want unwanted traffic, and that’s why firewalls matter. Most Linux-based operating systems have pre-installed firewalls. In addition to that, consider installing the free Config-Server Firewall. This firewall provides you with better security for your VPS server and gives you an advanced control interface for managing the firewall settings.
Perform Backups Regularly
This point goes for all types of hosting. It would be best if you make automatic backups. Note that backups should be performed outside your VPS server because if anything goes wrong with your VPS server, you should be prepared for this situation.
Set Up SSL Certificates For your Domains
SSL Certificate creates an encrypted channel between the server and the client browser to ensure privacy; so, to keep your sensitive data such as credit card information, users’ data, passwords, and so on, you must set up an SSL Certificate to encrypt all of your website data.
To conclude
No matter what your hosting type is, whether it’s shared hosting, VPS Hosting, or Dedicated Hosting, you should always be aware of your hosting security. With a VPS server especially, you’ll have more freedom but also more responsibility.
cPanel and WHM are two different tools that help users manage different types of web hosting. Many hosting new users ask about the difference between these two tools. In this article, we’ll learn about each tool, its benefits, and the difference between them. So, let’s get started.
What is cPanel?
cPanel is a GUI (Graphical User Interface) tool for managing your own hosting account. With cPanel you can do the necessary tasks to manage your hosting environment, like creating and managing a website, creating and managing professional email accounts, managing your domain names, managing your website files on the server, etc. All of these tasks help you manage your hosting without having to be a technical expert, so it’s a great tool.
The Key Benefits of cPanel
cPanel simply makes your life easier when it comes to hosting management. It helps you manage your hosting environment without having to be a technical expert. Let’s explore some of the cPanel benefits:
Manage Your Domain Names:
cPanel enables you to manage your domain names on your hosting. For example, you can add a domain name, manage your existing domain names, manage your redirects, manage your subdomains, manage your DNS, and so on.
Manage Your Email Accounts:
With cPanel, you can manage and create email accounts associated with your domain name such as ‘yourName@yourDomain.com’ instead of using traditional email addresses like Gmail or Outlook. So, you can create, delete, manage all of your email accounts from cPanel. You can set forwarders, autoresponders, control your email accounts’ authentication, and much more from cPanel.
Manage Your Server Files:
From cPanel File Manager, you can manage all of your website files and data, so you’ll be able to view all of your website files, make changes to them, and delete any file. You can also monitor your disk usage, manage your FTP accounts, and so on for the file-related tasks.
Manage Your Website Databases:
Most modern websites and CMS, like WordPress, use databases to manage their content and user data. cPanel helps you manage your website databases, create a new database for a website, manage existing databases, and so on from all database related tasks.
Install One-Click Software:
cPanel offers you a software called ‘Softaculous Apps Installer’, which enables you to install any software you need, such as popular CMS, e-commerce scripts, built-in chats, forums software and many more, all of that with a couple of clicks, easily and quickly.
What is WHM?
WHM is a GUI (Graphical User Interface) tool for managing multiple cPanel Accounts. WHM stands for Web Host Manager. WHM simply helps you manage many hosting accounts from one place.
The Key Benefits of WHM
WHM is a great tool for managing multiple hosting accounts and those who have a reseller hosting business. So, let’s explore some of the WHM key benefits:
The Ability to Manage and Create Multiple cPanel Account:
As the title suggests, WHM enables you to manage and create cPanel accounts on your server and control all of them from one WHM account. It also enables you to move between all of your cPanel accounts easily and quickly.
Gives Your Sites More Security:
When you are managing multiple sites, you need to be careful about their security. WHM gives you the ability to create a different cPanel for each site, which increases the security because if any site gets hacked, the other will not be affected.
Monitoring Your Sites from One Place:
WHM gives you the ability to monitor all of your sites’ activities and resources from one place, plus managing all of your sites’ resources such as disk space and bandwidth.
Branding Your Business:
If you’re running a reseller hosting business, WHM enables you to customize the cPanel interface to show your brand. For example, you can put your business logo, change the cPanel style, make a company profile for your business, and much more.
What is the Difference Between cPanel and WHM?
After we explained each one by itself, it will be easier for you to understand the difference between cPanel and WHM. Simply, as you might guess, cPanel is a tool for managing the hosting environment, and WHM is a tool for managing multiple cPanel accounts. Usually, anyone who has a hosting account uses cPanel or any other hosting control panel, but WHM shines when you need to manage multiple cPanel accounts or when you are running a reseller hosting business.
