Thursday, 5 April 2007

Learn to Harden PHP 5 with Suhosin

Falko Timme shows you how to harden PHP 5 with Suhosin on Debian Etch and Ubuntu Servers. He defines the practical side of the tutorial under the following sections:

Preliminary Note

He first informs you that he has carried out preliminary tests on a Debian Etch server. In the course of the tutorial he will install both Suhosin parts, the Suhosin patch for which you need to recompile PHP5 and the Suhosin PHP extension available as a Debian/Ubuntu package.

Installing Apache2 And PHP5 (Optional)

He says, this chapter is optional if you already have Apache2 and PHP5 installed. Here he gives tips how to install Apache 2 and PHP 5.

Getting Details About Your PHP5 Installation

He creates a small PHP file in this step (info.php) in the directory which you have created virtual hosts, place it in any of the virtual hosts that has PHP enabled and call it in a browser. The file will display details about your PHP installation, such as the installed PHP version. He gives screenshots for better understanding.

Installing Suhosin

He starts with installing Suhosin PHP extension, which is available as a package in the Debian Etch and Ubuntu repositories. He follows it up by installing Suhosin patches and with hands-on codes and examples demonstrates the procedure to do it.