Software Updates

All servers provisioned using SpinupWP will automatically install security updates daily. This reduces the likelihood that an attacker will be able to exploit a security vulnerability and is good security practice. Automatic security updates are handled by the unattended-upgrades package, which is installed and configured by SpinupWP. Often times a security update will require a…

Changing PHP Settings

PHP settings are controlled using php.ini files. When you deploy a server via SpinupWP, a default php.ini file is created with sensible default values. However, you are free to update these values. Each version of PHP has its own php.ini file, which is located here: /etc/php/{PHP_VERSION}/fpm/php.ini Any changes made to this file will impact all…

Increasing Server Timeout Limits

All SpinupWP servers are configured with a default timeout limit of 30 seconds. However, you may increase this limit if you are experiencing “504 Gateway Time-out” errors. This setting cannot be adjusted via the SpinupWP UI, so start by connecting to your server using a sudo user, then update your PHP and Nginx configs, as…

Connecting to your Database

Once you have created a database in SpinupWP you can manage the database in two ways: using the command line (CLI) or using a desktop app. Using the CLI To manage the database using the command line first you need to SSH to your server: ssh user@123.456.78.91 Once you are logged into your server you…

Using SSH Keys

To encourage security best practice in SpinupWP we disable SSH password authentication by default. Instead, authentication with your servers is done using SSH Keys. How Do SSH Keys Work? The Secure Shell (SSH) protocol allows you to securely connect and authenticate to remote servers over an unsecured network using end-to-end encryption. SSH keys provide a…

Understanding System Users

SpinupWP utilizes two different types of system users. These users allow you to safely and conveniently manage your servers and sites. Let’s take a look at each. Sudo Users Following security best practices, SpinupWP disables SSH access for the root user on all servers. Instead, you can add sudo users, which will have sudo access….

The SpinupWP Cache Daemon

The cache daemon is a little Go app we’ve written and deploy to every server to help with purging the page cache. The reason we need this daemon is an issue of file permissions. Each site runs a PHP pool as the site user but since cache files are owned by user www-data PHP cannot…

Understanding PHP Pools

As described in Understanding System Users all sites deployed via SpinupWP are owned by a unique system user. This provides security isolation on the server because a site user cannot read or modify another site’s files. Each site is also deployed with a PHP-FPM resource pool, which is owned by the site user. This prevents…

Increasing the Server Max Upload Size

All SpinupWP servers are configured with a default maximum upload size of 64MB. However, you may increase this limit if you need to allow larger files to be uploaded via the Media Library. This setting cannot be adjusted via the SpinupWP UI, so start by connecting to your server using SSH, then update your PHP…

What’s Installed on Your SpinupWP Server

SpinupWP servers are always set up with the latest stable software versions so you don’t have to worry about the nitty gritty of keeping up with best practices. When you spin up a new server using SpinupWP the following software will be installed: Nginx (with HTTP/2 enabled) 1.15 PHP-FPM 7.1/7.2/7.3 MySQL/MariaDB (depending on what you…