Admincp on a different machine?
 

Dear All,

I am planning to move my admincp pages to a different host. I have a separate machine for monitoring and other supporting tasks and this allows me to do some really draconian IP filtering on such tools. :)

What are the risks of doing this?

Can I just install a second instance of the site on the second machine and delete the admincp pages from the main box?

Kees Jan

What you can do is remove Admin CP files off the primary box, place a set of original vBulletin files onto the other box, and setup config.php to access the database of the primary installation. Do not run install.php! (But remove it.)

Dear Dismounted,

So there is no caching in vbulletin that may make this difficult?

What kind of caches are you talking about?

Dear Dismounted,

Well, that is my question: does vbulletin or Apache cache stuff that would make moving the admincp to a different machine harder?

Kees Jan

I would also suggest making this set of files completely inaccessible to outsiders or else you run into licensing issues with Jelsoft. That would fall under "multiple sites without multiple licenses" if not password protected from others.

Dear j883376,

Yes, I am aware of the licensing issues that such a setup would bring. The whole point of this setup would be to have the admincp inaccessible to anyone but admininstrators.


Well, from what I gather there are no real technical limitations. You guys brought up some valid points (licensing, not running install from both locations) , so I think I'll go ahead and set this up.

Thanks for your input.

Kees Jan

PS. This also ties into my post about limiting database grants. Having the admin control panel on a separate machine allows me to instruct MySQL to not give ALTER/DROP/CREATE privileges to the admin machine. This makes SQL injection just that little bit less powerful on my site.

It will also stop you doing some administration duties, since they may require such privileges.

Actually, AFAIK, it would not. Both sets of files are pointing to the same set of data, with no domain discrimination. That does not break the license agreement.

Simply password protecting the admincp folder will do that, no need for another server.